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rebelliousstories · 2 years ago

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Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘N Roll

Relationship: Donnie Darko x Reader

Fandom: Donnie Darko

Request: Yes by Anon

Warnings: Fluff, Weed Consumption, Mentions of Death, Violence, and Horny Thoughts

Word Count: 1,799

Masterlist: Here

Jake Gyllenhaal & Co. Masterlist: Here

Summary: What was suppose to be a quiet and spooky night in, quickly turned into something a bit scarier, but a bit more relaxed.

“Come on in, Donnie! I’m so excited for tonight!” She exclaimed loudly, pulling her dark haired friend inside. The boy laughed and looked around the home. A home so unlike his own, yet so similar. He allowed himself to be pulled up stairs and to the second door on the right. Donnie knew this bedroom well, having come here often over the last few years. While her parents didn’t know about some of those visits thanks to the ladder that stayed on her side of the house, he knew that they liked him. They liked that they were such close friends and balanced each other out.

Donnie helped to take blankets, pillows, and other items to the living room for the movie night they were going to have. Apparently it was a sin in his best friend’s eyes to have never seen “Rocky Horror Picture Show” which he didn’t get. But he’d do anything just to see her happy, and if that meant watching an incredibly sexual and horror based movie, he’d do it. A small fort was now erected in the living room when the popcorn had been started. Candy littered the coffee table, with a small portion of the table left visible for beverages and the aforementioned popcorn. Donnie smelled the butter and could practically taste the salt coating the kernels as she brought it over in a big bowl. He went to reach for a handful but a shock ran through him instead when he felt her hand meet his. They shared a glance and prayed that the other one would not notice the blush now coating their cheeks. The VHS tape was loaded in and finally the night was set to begin.

“I promise you’re gonna love the film, Donnie. It’s a classic in the horror scene now. Although it did terribly when it was first released.” She assured him while the lips moved across the screen.

“I believe you, okay? It sounds like the sort of thing we’d enjoy.” He watched her shoot him a wink and let the rest of the movie play. Everything was going fine. Donnie laughed as she called out the crowd interaction every chance she got. She usually tried to warn him what was coming up and what to do which made it even more fun for the boy. Watching his best friend enjoy something so clearly and fiercely put a small smile on his face that didn’t seem to go away.

Everything was going fine. Until it wasn’t. Donnie was really getting into the film, and enjoying it almost as much as his best friend. After a brief pause, where the two friends calmed down, the boy saw something flash out of the corner of his eyes. At first, he thought that it was another hallucination but it was just the T.V. Bright images flashed, and the lyrics struck a cord deep within Donnie. He saw Frank start to show up in the middle of all the dancing. Bodies started dropping, and images flashed through his head of violence and death. But Frank stayed in the middle of it all. Unmoving. He couldn’t focus on anything else other than the illusions of color and mayhem on the screen.

“Donnie?” His head whipped around lightning fast at the sound of his name. His best friend was looking at him with a concerned expression and Donnie suddenly felt a little self conscious.

“Donnie? Are you okay? You kinda zoned out on me.” It was then that he noticed that the movie was paused and stuck on the face of Tim Curry in full makeup.

“I don’t know. Everything just got a lot really quick.” He focused his attention to the blanket draped across his legs as they sat in silence. No words were spoken between the pair as she stood up and grabbed his hand to gently pull him off the floor. While Donnie was confused, he still followed her to the stairs. They walked up, hand in hand, until they found themselves back in her bedroom but without all the blankets and pillows. She sat him down on the bed before she reached underneath and pulled out an old shoebox. Donnie furrowed his brows as he watched her pull the lid off, and he saw the contents.

A tiny tin box sat in the larger cardboard box, with a lighter and an ashtray. She picked up the tin box and took that lid off as well. Three little rolled up blunts awaited their eyes as she rummaged around to pull the other stuff out from the box.

“Won’t your parents be mad?” Donnie asked as she set everything up on the floor so as not to ruin her bed.

“They’re just happy I’m not knocked up right now. Besides, as long as I do it in the house it’s fine.” She replied, patting the spot next to her on the floor. Donnie cautiously slunk down off the bed and joined her.

“Have you ever smoked before?” He shook his head at her question.

“Okay so I’m gonna light it, then walk you through it. But in essence, just hold the smoke in your mouth. Don’t breathe too much in on your first go.” And with that, he watched as her hands moved to light the joint, and breathed in deeply. Thick white smoke blew out from her lips, and Donnie couldn’t help but be reminded of one of his drawing in that sense. She held the blunt out in her hands to the boy who gingerly took it in his hands. He tried to replicate what she had done, but ended up coughing up a storm as the smoke disappeared into thin air. She patted his back with a chuckle and tried to take the offending drug away but Donnie turned his body away and kept it. His second go around was a lot smoother, only coughing slightly as he exhaled. And that was only the beginning of the night for the duo.

“No but like why do pigs look like that?” She asked now laying down on her elbow on her bed, with Donnie in front of her on his back in the bed.

“Like domestic, or selective breeding or some shit.” He said but started to giggle halfway through. By the end of his sentence, Donnie was thrown into full blown laughter. She joined him soon enough and had her own laughs at his. After a few moments, they both died down until they were left in silence.

“Hey,” Donnie called only to receive a hum in return.

“Can we finish the movie now?” The boy let himself be dragged down the stairs yet again, towards the forgotten movie. The video started yet again but Donnie was started to focus on the movie less and less as time went on. His mind was filled with visions but not of destruction and mayhem. They were filled with her. He was confused; why would he be thinking about how soft her lips looked versus how soft they’d feel? Donnie didn’t feel an ounce of shame when she caught him staring, but instead loved the blush that came arch’s her face.

“What’s up, Donnie?” She asked, briefly turning back to the film. She couldn’t get over the way he stared at her. It freaked her out a little, but also made her feel warm and fuzzy.

“You’re pretty.” He stated simply, as if it was the most basic fact in the universe. She felt her cheeks heat up even more and hoped that the darkness was enough to hide it.

“Thanks Donnie.” Her quiet reply came. The boy shuffled closer to her and turned his focus back to the film. But his eyes were the only thing on the moving picture; his thoughts were still stuck on her.

“Would you go with any of the characters? Or cast? If you could, that is.” The question made her think for just a second. She moved even closer to the boy, and gently placed her head on his shoulder before she responded.

“Frank ‘N Furter for sure. Or Magenta. I like Columbia but I don’t know if I could do that voice twenty-four seven.” Donnie nodded at her choices.

“What about you? Who would you go with?” She asked, as they watch Frank ‘N Furter sneak into Brad’s room.

“Same. Although I might give Columbia a chance. They all seem like wackos. Maybe I’d fit in.” He said dismissively. She grabbed his hand but didn’t tear her eyes from the screen.

“You’re still my favorite wacko.” She admitted, and felt Donnie nuzzle his face into her hair. The pair of them said nothing for a few minutes, and simply basked in the silence. As the movie went on, both friends still felt the high in their systems as they laid on top of one another. Donnie kept his head turned to the side from where he laid on her chest. Her head was in the same position, but she switched between the film and Donnie whenever he let out a little giggle, or said something about the film.

“I’m not gay, but I’d gladly let Frank ‘N Furter take me out. He’s too pretty. Is he turning me gay? Wait, no. Cause I still like women. What does that make me? Bicycle? Bisectional? Bicentennial?” Donnie rambled on, causing her to start chuckling beneath his head.

“Bisexual?” She offered, but Donnie shook his head.

“No. Oh, now I remember. Biologist.” Her laughter couldn’t be contained anymore which caused Donnie’s head to come off her chest and looked at her with a quizzical look.

“Yes, Donnie. You’re a biologist because you like Frank and Magenta.” Donnie got a big, proud smile on his face and nodded.

“Yeah.” He said it so proudly and cutely that she couldn’t help but stroke his face. But when her hand to leave, Donnie pulled it back and nuzzled into it like a cat. When he opened his eyes again, their eyes locked and neither could look away.

“Do you like Frank and Magenta?” He asked, staring at her like this was the most important question of their lives.

“Yeah. ‘M just like you a little bit.” She said as she kept her hand on his cheek.

“Wanna go with me and be biologists together?” Her smile infected Donnie’s face who also started to genuinely smile down at her.

“I’d love to be a biologist with you.” Donnie nodded again, proud of himself, and settled back down on her chest. She knew he probably wouldn’t remember this interaction the next morning, but for right now, she was content to stay in their little bubble. Listening to the sweet voice of Tim Curry serenade the ending of the film.

#rebelliousstories #writing #jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal #jake gyllenhaal imagine #donnie darko x reader #donnie darko fanfiction #donnie darko #donnie darko imagine #donnie darko fanfic

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faelune-home · 2 months ago

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FFXIVWrite 2024 #19: Taken

(A/n: So i say I'm focusing a lot on the magic questline, and yet here's anoter entry into the magic questline rewrite. Again, I just really like writing Alisaie's perspective on this matter, and at this point I've realised that figuring out the magic plot could roughly let me figure out the whole timeline for the other quests as well as msq. Plus I did say I want to see one of these rewrite quests finished before the month ends, so at this rate it's gonna be the magic one.

Having this one be a friendly chat with Artoirel before Ali rejoins msq, and Fhara dips off for Elpis, so this is also the separation point where the quest ending will have to wait till after that msq point. The actual prompt inspiration being the discussion on Aymeric and how infatuated he is with Fhara its hard to miss, but in turn, Fhara's waning mutual feeling also stands out in how she clearly doesn't match him anymore.

Spoiler warning in play now as we appraoch the second half of EndW msq and the later magic role quests, the narration will mention the msq event a bit more now as these entries go on.

Word count: 1403)

Alisaie could only sigh as she packed up her things. There really wasn’t anything left to do, at least at that point. Aymeric had arranged for a council to be held to address the feelings of disconnect between the church and the populace, but that would require time and all sorts of bureaucratic red tape to get through, and there hadn’t been any other sightings of Profane Fafnir since.

And with the death of the bishop, despite even more unrest amongst the clergy, no-one else had reported any other turnings. It’s like his passing had cowed enough of the faithful into silence, hiding away to avoid the same fate.

She could just hang around Ishgard waiting for news, but as it was, Krile and Y’shtola had called everyone back to help with matters in Thavnair, especially as people were beginning the process of migrating to Sharlayan to prepare for the exodus.

And Fhara would be making moves to try and travel back to the ancients’ time…

Alisaie’s fist curled up to think of Fhara still at work, barely taking any time to rest. Mostly of her own volition, which frustrated her to no end, but it was just as much the fault of everyone else needing Fhara’s assistance, the world dying and the people suffering, and of course Fhara would never deny the call to help people.

Always equal parts inspiring and infuriating.

Alisaie sighed again to ease the tension, not even realising her shoulders were practically up to her ears, and releasing the poor clothing garment that had been victim to her clenched hand.

There was a knock at the door. She packed away the piece and called for the person to enter.

“Good evening, my lady,” Artoirel said, offering a small bow as he entered, leaving the door behind him slightly ajar, “I hope you don’t mind my intrusion.”

“Not at all ser, I’m just packing up,” Alisaie responded, gesturing to her pack. It was only a light one anyway, for easy travel, with a mix of clothes suited for both Thavnair and Garlemald given the Scions most recent activities. “Mostly finished by now.”

“I see,” he nodded in acknowledgement, “I must say, while this certainly isn’t the last we’ll see of each other once the council is ready to commence, it has been an honour to work alongside you so far. Your brother’s tales didn’t do you justice.” Alisaie folded her arms and tried not to look too smug at the praise.

Apparently her brother had sold her as a passionate and headstrong person that would almost certainly bite back against people she deemed too overconfident or self assured. At the time, Alisaie had been admittedly rather wary of that description - it wasn’t wrong per say, even if it was mostly about how she treated Alphinaud himself, and before they’d reunited properly - but Artoirel had acknowledged himself that he was relishing to chance to meet her. In his own words;

”You were going to be the better person to counter Ishgard’s own stubborn ranks.”

Returning to the moment, she nodded back.

“I’m glad I could be of assistance. And that I could live up to my reputation. I still have to thank Alphinaud for being so lenient in his description.”

She almost dared think he cracked a smile at that, but if he did, it was lost again in his ever professional demeanour.

“I’m especially glad to have you here as it took a lot of the pressure off of Lady Fhara. Although I suppose that means nothing when she simply stretched herself thin helping damn near every nation on Aldenard instead. When Aymeric and I sent our delegate to seek her aid, we weren’t expecting her to accept every offer sent her way.”

“Unfortunately I did,” Alisaie frowned, “But while she’ll never take a moment for herself until she’s about ready to sleep on her feet, I am glad she enlisted our help with these matters. If this is the closest we can get to taking some of the burden off of her, then I’ll put in 110% of the effort for her sake.”

This time, he was definitely smiling. It was only small, but it was there.

“You certainly have. The Scions are ever working tirelessly but I shall hope that you can keep up that same effort once we finally move to face Profane Fafnir with your return.” She nodded firmly.

“I can only hope Ser Aymeric manages with Fhara being away again,” she suddenly mused, the man’s ever attentive behaviour playing on her mind, “I know he’s quite…fond of her.”

“So I’ve noticed. Though I’m rather surprised to see Lady Fhara not quite matching his enthusiasm,” Artoirel said.

“Really? I simply took her for trying to remain professional. Or simply her exhaustion leaving her a touch disconnected,” she responded.

“I can assure you, even during her days here in Ishgard with Master Alphinaud and Lady Tataru, Lady Fhara was very obvious with her mutual affections, and it never hindered her capabilities.”

Alisaie wasn’t going to argue against that - after all, she didn’t have much of an idea of Fhara’s relations beyond the Scions, especially during the time she wasn’t with the group. All she knew of Aymeric and Fhara’s courting was Fhara ultimately deciding to put it to the side since the threat of the ascians was too great to ignore for such dalliances.

But Fhara’s behaviour had stood out during their time in Ishgard - never quite meeting Aymeric with the same energy, always keeping space between them, and the few times Aymeric had tried to approach her with talk of something other than their mission - light small talk about the state of the city beyond the church, her own wellbeing, even a quickly dashed attempt for a moment alone - Fhara had immediately put up the wall of civility, focusing on the duty at hand.

It left Alisaie wondering about her friend’s feelings for the other man…

“Well, no matter what it is, I hope she is well. Perhaps once the matter is finished, they can discuss it between them,” Artoirel nodded, catching her attention again.

“I didn’t take you to be the type to mind others' relations or rumours,” Alisaie asked, though with a more amused tone of voice. And for all his scoff in response, again he had that small smile.

“Please, that’s my brother’s occupation. Lurking about the Crozier minding the whispers. Though I can’t deny he’s able to keep above the news and the secrets of the other houses, as deplorable as an act it is, it has some use.”

“I’m unfortunately quite aware. Maybe you didn’t know, or perhaps he dressed it up in more palatable terms, but Alphinaud can be quite the same, always with his ear to the goings on of others and ready to stick his nose in where it might not be wanted.”

His response was a semi-stifled huff of laughter, which at this point Alisaie realised, might as well be Ser Artoirel’s equivalent of an outright bark of amusement.

“I was not aware, but in hindsight that would explain much. Always interfering indeed.” A chime sounded from the door, a clock going off somewhere else in the inn. Since when was that the time?

“Well, I wasn’t aware it’d been so long. I have other work to be getting on with,” he mumbled below his breath, coughing to recollect himself and pulling himself straight. That straightlaced expression once again on his face.

“Once again, it has been a pleasure to fight alongside you. My apologies for keeping you, and I await your return to finish matters,” he said, bowing to her.

“Until then,” Alisaie said, bowing in turn, picking up her travel bag. The borrowed coat lay untouched on the bed. She didn’t really need it if she was returning to Thavnair, but she picked it up all the same and handed it back to him.

“Thank you. I shall keep this waiting for you at the manor. Would you care for me to lead you out?”

Ever the professional, ever the dutiful lord, ever keeping up appearances. Even if she knew he had a bit more to him behind that stern front. In a way, maybe she was glad to have met him - straightforward but never quite feeling like she had to talk in circles like most diplomatic matters.

“Please, lead the way my lord.”

#ffxivwrite #ffxivwrite2024 #alisaie leveilleur #artoirel de fortemps #endwalker #role quests #fufu's writing

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felixcloud6288 · 10 months ago

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Higurashi: Curse Killing Final Chapter

In the intro poem, Frederica Bernkastel talks about herself and several others being trapped in a maze. Of note, the person who knows they're in a maze but doesn't know there's no exit is referred to as "he". I guess "he" is Keiichi who's been trying for three arcs now to figure out what is causing all these terrible events.

Everyone else just lives their lives oblivious to the maze they're trapped in.

And the story as a whole has escalated from the death of a few friends to the death of several villagers to the death of the entire village.

On the one hand, shock would probably make it hard for him to process the situation even when he sees the body bags and the corpses packed into the trucks. On the other, I feel like the buildup to everything was longer than it should have been.

Like, it shouldn't have been gentle. We should have seen Mion or Rena's bodies being packed into a body bag. The story should have slapped us in the face and said 'Yes. Everyone is dead!" and then we get the shots of the hundreds of body bags and the news reports about the disaster.

And then Keiichi freaks out when he remembers that he wished for the death of Hinamizawa.

That one line from the personnel with Keiichi as he passed out "It's not okay for life to die", I don't know why, but it resonated with me.

And some things of note in the death list:

Jirou Tomitake is not his real name

Chie and Kameda (The guy from the baseball game) died in an accident in the mountains.

Teppei is still not reported dead

Shion and Kasai (Who we haven't met) died two months later at the hospital

The very last part of the chapter is like something you'd hear on a conspiracy theory true crimes podcast. A bunch of dudes would be talking about Hinamizawa and claiming it was some government conspiracy and the government killed all these people and claimed it was a gas leak cause government gonna government and this was actually to hide the aliens or something.

And then they'd bring up Keiichi and be all "There was one survivor Keiichi Maebara, who died four months later" "Of course, the government wants to keep him silent." "And he never testified about the disaster" "Oh he probably did but the government came in and stopped any testimony from getting out there." "Or so we thought cause in 2003, a tape recording believed to be an interview from November 1983 was found. Here is that recording."

I kinda want to see if it would be possible to trick an actual conspiracy podcast into thinking this was a real thing that happened.

I was going to mention this in the spoiler section until it got brought up in the chapter itself. Yeah, Keiichi should not be alive if Onigafuchi swamp released enough gas to asphyxiate an entire village. Carbon dioxide is heavier than air so it can be trapped in lower areas. And Keiichi was at the bottom of a ravine so the gas should have settled around there first.

And that reporter did not escape Keiichi's curse. It took 12 years but he drowned just as Keiichi said he would.

At this point those true crime podcasters would be freaking out and be like "Yo, this ain't aliens, it's ghosts! The governments trying to hide that they made contacts with ghosts!"

In chapter 5, Rena asked Keiichi how would he react if the village was destroyed in a volcanic eruption and he was the only survivor. She was trying to make him understand that he should cherish the fun times he has with his friends because those days will end eventually.

It's almost ironic what ended up happening though. An eruption did destroy the village, but it didn't mark the end of Keiichi's happy days. His happy days had already ended so he let the village be destroyed.

back

Spoiler Discussion

I'm making a lot of conspiracy jokes, but there is definitely one here.

Alongside what the interviewer mentioned in the chapter, I also want to bring up how Keiichi had apparently attempted suicide in August. Do you know what else happened in August? Shion committed suicide.

And isn't it interesting that Chie and Kameda died in an accident trying to evacuate from the disaster? People from the nearby area had to evacuate as well but isn't it quite the coincidence that someone from the village ended up dying in an "accident".

What I'm getting at is everyone connected to the village died. I bet Shion and Keiichi didn't attempt to kill themselves in August. Someone tried to get rid of them, but medical staff found Keiichi before he was killed.

#higurashi no naku koro ni #higurashi no naku koro ni reread #higurashi when they cry

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odetoviscera · 2 years ago

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Liveblogging Mission: Impossible 3, Lens Flare-ily

BACK. BACK AGAIN. THE MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE. THE ETHAN: HUNTED MAYBE I ASSUME??? THEMATIC COLOUR BASED ON THE PARAMOUNT+ BANNER: COOL BLUE.

i think these are just getting longer. liveblogging below.

this movie released in 2006, when i was sixteen and therefore very likely to have seen it. i have the vague impression that i did. i still don’t remember anything specific about it, but we’ll see if any Buried Memories resurface during this viewing lol

paramount logo now comes with Vaguely Sinister Sounds

oop, i hear ethan getting electrocuted

and oh BOY is he looking rough. my boy :( we’re in media res i guess lol. “we’ve put an explosive charge in your head.” i bet you’re wondering how i got into this mess--

is that philip seymour hoffman??? yes it is, as our villain for the piece, one assumes. you don’t waste philip seymour hoffman on your cold open only villain who never shows up again lol

“you’re gonna tell me where the rabbit’s foot is or she dies” so firstly: obviously The Villain has made an accurate assessment of Ethan Hunt’s Survival Instincts. secondly: whomst? whomst this? “jules” apparently.

ethan goes from “we can talk like gentlemen”-- shot of a goon with a broken nose that i assume ethan gave him here, btw, which: split second of levity, thank you movie-- to RATTLING THE CHAINS ON HIS CHAIR LIKE A DOG ON A CHOKE CHAIN between the villain counting from two to three. i am. FULL OF CONCERN. movie has done a genuinely good job setting a High Stress Threshold from the word go lol

OOF villain just shot hostage lady in i think the knee? it went pretty fast. either way he is Not Impressed with ethan’s attempts at negotiation.

you know i am genuinely not sure ethan actually knows what villain guy wants? he seems to be legitimately losing his mind about hostage lady, i’m not sure he’d still be prevaricating by this point. sometimes he surprises me though!

HMM. got to count of ten, and i’m not sure if that was a gunshot or the Mission Impossible Match Lighting for the opening! will be interested to see if we’re going back in time or if this was the Trauma Setup for the film

so who’s our director on this-- oh it’s JJ ABRAMS? where is this in his filmography… huh, i guess this was his directorial debut in film. he’d previously worked as a director in tv on alias and lost, though-- alias is presumably what got him this one. okay, so i should expect lens flare and, ugh, “mystery boxes” lol

and the credits end with I THINK hostage lady jules opening her fridge. kind of hard to tell without the duct tape lol. but i believe this means we’re in Flashback Territory

oh ethan is kissing on her. look at that smile! one must imagine ethan hunt happy

okay her family’s over. awww, ethan: “it’s going well right?” i wonder if this is the first time he’s meeting her whole family or? regardless he is seeking Validation. insecure ethan hunt. bless.

oh it’s their engagement party! but yes it seems like this is the first time they’re meeting him. whirlwind romance?

“ethan doesn’t have his parents anymore either”-- i guess his mom died between movies?

dfklha;ldkfha;slkh ethan boring everyone at the party with his “i work at the department of transportation” cover lol

dfl;kkhas;ldkfha;lskh okay the ladies are in the kitchen gossiping and i am PRETTY SURE ethan is reading their lips from across the room lol

jules is a nurse! and apparently they met while skydiving or something lol, which based on ethan’s Freeclimbing Hobby i guess does track as something he’d do in his freetime, but DOES also open the possibility that they met on a job. i’m undecided on whether she Knows™ lol

this is all very wholesome, even without the cold open i’d know it was doomed

phone call “is this mr. ethan hunt” and he doesn’t Get It immediately despite the Sinister Tone bc he’s in Happy Ethan Cover Mode.

aaaand the penny drops. “all-expenses paid trip to mexico”

ethan: chucks the ice out the back door

ethan: oh nooo we ran out of ice i’ll go get some

listen i don’t know enough about cars to tell you what kind this is, but it is a Dad Car. ethan hunt is engaging Dad Mode before he even gets married

omg they even have a DOG. does the dog die??? hang on i have to know this before i become emotionally attached-- okay per doesthedogdie.com NO. THE DOG IS SAFE.

anyway i can’t believe The Local 7/11 is where ethan has meetings with his handler lol. oh hm ethan is Training Operatives now instead of working, apparently. this seems like a positive career move! i’m sure it won’t last!

“agent farris” is missing-- that’s not nyah is it? …no, nyah is nordoff-hall. someone else ethan trained, presumably. (speaking of which, what happened with nyah?)

and of course ethan can’t resist at least Retrieving the mission brief hidden in the disposable camera lol. oh good lord, i figured it would just be on the film reel, no, this thing has an IRIS SCANNER, someone introduce me to imf’s q, who is the silly bastard inventing these

oh we got a name for villain guy now, “owen davian”-- has farris hostage, they aren’t disavowing her bc they want her intel, apparently.

new team!

declan gormley-- sorry about your name my guy-- is an “aviation machinist” (so probably our pilot) and a sysop engineer, so probably also our hacker

zhen lei is a “lan computer networker”-- …sure-- with “combat assault skills” which should come in handy even if ethan is now specced more for soldiering than he used to be

luther! love to see you but why haven’t you retired with your bajillion dollars yet. also why are there so many hackers on this team. anyway, he’s also got “artillery equipment specialist” listed in his credentials, which i assume is from that one time he fired a bazooka at a car chasing ethan last movie lol

“this message, let’s call it my excellent engagement gift to you--” dhf;lakhd;flkhas dude. no.

i will say the latest imf bigwig seems less infuriating than the last two, even if he is Dragging Ethan Out Of Retirement. it is an “if you choose to accept it”! i mean ethan will, inevitably, accept it, bc he’s Himself, but there’s at least a hypothetical out.

ethan’s having nightmares :(

and yep, now he’s telling julia he’ll have to “go on a business trip”. although he tells her it’ll only be for a night, which is probably over-optimistic of him.

LUTHER!!!! he is exuding Competence and Confidence which is an interesting change of pace from him, lol, he’s often been a bit Anxious in the previous two movies. not about his skills, but about like. The Inherent Dangers Of The Job. i guess this is Older Wiser Luther lol

and it looks like we’re going STRAIGHT into the extraction, no setup, so uh. i’m not sure it’s gonna go well. also, first of the Really Noticeable Lens Flares lol

i will say, egregious lens flares notwithstanding lol, this is actually really well lit for a night scene. you remember when films used to LIGHT for dark scenes instead of just doing them IN the dark? those were the days

okay this is an interesting exchange between ethan and luther. luther says “you know i got your six.” and ethan’s response is just “hey, man. that’s your job.” which, objectively speaking, is TRUE-- but there’s a beat afterwards where they just look at each other before they move on. i’m not sure if this is some kind of unresolved tension from ethan having gotten out of field work for a while, if this is luther alluding to ethan’s tendency from the last movie to go into situations without the POSSIBILITY of backup, if luther is trying to remind ethan that he’s got a Full (and Fully Trained) team for possibly the first time since the first movie, if luther is trying to remind ethan that they’re FRIENDS and being kind of gently rebuffed bc this is a high-stakes field operation… unclear.

anyway luther has gotten Four Computer-Operated Guns that he can run from the safety of his little combat van setup, lol.

lkafd;lkfh;alsh okay listen. luther has heat-vision on the building. okay. i’ll buy it. luther locates a heat-signature that appears to be sitting in a slightly reclined position that looks uncomfortable and probably like restraint-- cool! that’s probably our hostage! but the computer then announcing “target match” with “VASCULAR ID CONFIRMED”-- that! is not! how that works!

okay so real quick: vascular pattern recognition is real, blood vessel patterns are about as unique as fingerprints and iris patterns, but significantly harder to counterfeit bc they’re Beneath The Skin. but you DO NOT identify vascular patterns by heat signature, they ARE NOT analyses of the entire vascular system of the body, they usually FUNCTION LIKE FINGERPRINT SCANNERS, bc they assess the blood vessel patterns beneath the skin of a fingertip. it’s a photographic comparison between the database pattern and the registered pattern, which is scanned with infrared leds and fancy cameras. it’s only more secure than a fingerprint bc of the Beneath The Skin part. don’t ask me why i know this, i write fanfiction, you just pick these things up. THIS IS NOT HOW IT WORKS!!!

look at some more lens flare. also i need you to know that the yellow lights on the left side are flickering in time with the fluttering cymbal in the score.

fh;alksdhf;lakkh luther, mid-op, “at some point we gotta go over this whole getting married thing.” luther is demanding to know if julia is good enough for his ethan lol i’m guessing he’s grumpy he wasn’t consulted

hmm, they’re drugging farris with something, “give her 10ccs more”-- oh hey, the one creepily petting her hair is the goon with the future broken nose, btw. deserved.

blow some charges and luther is lighting this place UP with his four guns lol. this seems like it might be SLIGHTLY risky with ethan and a hostage inside, but i assume they’re accounted for in the targeting ranges

ethan takes down one goon with a short burst, so he’s upgraded from hand guns to something more robust. he just gets Shootier and Shootier each movie lol

farris gets an adrenaline shot so that she can participate in her own rescue, i assume-- hopefully that doesn’t interact too badly with whatever she’s drugged with

i haven’t seen enough of the new teammates to really get a sense of them yet but zhen admittedly looks cool as hell moving through the facility towards her objective lol. i can’t get a decent screengrab of this bc the lights are flashing constantly, the cuts are too fast, and paramount+ won’t let me scroll frame by frame but just trust me that she is cool and we love a woman in military gear. also she VERY narrowly avoids getting blown up by a grenade by flinging herself out a window.

uh-oh, farris is telling ethan to turn off his transmitter so she can talk to him Privately. that’s ominous, especially Mid-Rescue while the building is full of holes

they were interrupted by a firefight, and farris’ adrenaline has definitely kicked in! looks like ethan trained her well

the intel (?) that zhen came for has been slightly blown up, hopefully still useful

fkha;ldkfh;lakshdf;lkah

lindsey: i’m out, how many rounds you got?

ethan, making The Most Concerned Unconcerned Face: …………Enough

also he makes like a thousand tiny flinching faces while he’s gearing up to take his One Shot, which Must Kill This Man bc “enough” means “one bullet”, which makes it extremely clear how much his blase “now i’m out :|”

after said shot does kill said man is a FUCKING MASK. ethan hunt knows half his reputation is cool one-liners after he does something absurd and that that’s the part people will remember, and he plays into that ON PURPOSE bc his previous job role was BEING THE FACE. i am begging everyone on earth to remember that this man’s SECOND career is soldier, and he came from THE THEATRE OF ESPIONAGE. he is a dramatic bitch INTENTIONALLY to ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING.

one INCREDIBLY hot extraction on the top of luther’s van later, and everybody’s getting on the helicopter without farris getting to have her solo talk with ethan-- aaaaand now she’s complaining of a sudden intense headache, which probably means her head is about to explode ala “we’ve put an explosive charge in your head” from the cold open

…uhoh, declan-- i was right, he is our pilot-- is hesitating to take off, and i hear another helicopter approaching-- yeah, that’s a gunship. and alas it does not get taken out by the van blowing up, so they’re being pursued-- through a field of wind turbines which is an interesting visual AND an interesting tactic by declan

oh my god so much lens flare though lol. the music is getting increasingly ominous

they've located the bomb in farris' head! according to ethan’s little magic scanner device, it contains at least nitroglycerin and magnesium, and it looks about the size of a pill, so… possibly her head does not explode as such, just. burn from the inside out.

declan doing some VERY tight maneuvering to dodge some missiles. luther is leaning out the side of the helicopter with a handgun apparently hoping he can use it to shoot down a gunship lol. MAYBE if he can get a shot through the windscreen???

….okay so ethan’s plan for dealing with the explosive is to shock farris with the defibrillator-- i’m kind of unclear on whether the plan is to use the defib on the chest as intended or like. on her HEAD. hopefully the former lol

second missile fired-- ah, okay, it looks like luther’s gun was actually a flare gun, he’s just fired it in an attempt to divert the missile ala firing chaff. which works! shears a turbine blade off into a field of very alarmed sheep lol

third missile lock, and declan just went BETWEEN THE BLADES of a wind turbine, which the following gunship really should not have attempted lol, it got crunched like tinfoil. we love to see that imf competence on display-- which their AGENTS typically do! their organization as a whole, less so

aaand the aed’s thirty-second charging window was just slightly too long and farris’ charge has detonated in her brain. relatively bloodless, although her eyes get kind of fucked up, which i will do you the favour of not screencapping

this is the face of ethan hunt about to go on the warpath, by the way

ethan hunt returning to his nice domestic life after a mission that ended in complete failure despite everyone technically doing a spectacular job

aaand putting the mask on for the almost-wife. there was a MOMENT where he wasn’t caught up and he still looked lost and devastated, and she caught it-- bc of course she did-- and he couldn’t tell her what it was about, so-- The Patented Ethan Hunt Grin comes on. this is almost extra tragic? bc like… clearly he doesn’t want his spy life to overlap with his wife life. understandable (hi cold open) and probably unavoidable, given she wouldn’t have clearance to know 99% of it anyway. but just the emotional distance between Party Ethan who seemed genuinely happy and excited and nervous in that Border Collie way-- meeting new people! being nice to them! getting his girlfriend’s brother a beer! “it’s going well, right?”-- and this ethan, who is papering over his hurt bc he can’t afford to show her what it’s about.

and you can see she doesn’t entirely buy it, either. if she survives this movie, that’s going to become an ongoing source of conflict.

oh i take it back, apparently laurence fishburne is the REAL IMF brass of this movie, and he sucks just as much as the rest of them lol. “i read your training brief on agent farris. the words you used were “beyond capable.” that still stand, mr hunt?” fuck you dude, like ya’ll don’t lose agents left and right around here

oof, yep, the intel did get fried by the grenade, which is not making the imf any happier. not, to be clear, that i want the imf to be happy. fuck the imf ethan, GO FREELANCE, these people have sucked in EVERY MOVIE

oof, farris was his First Ever recommendation for field duty. no wonder this is hitting him like a train

hmm, ethan just got a call at farris’ funeral asking for a “mr. kelvin” which must be one of his cover identities, since he answers to it. apparently farris-- or “farris”-- sent him a postcard from berlin. the postcard has no text-- it has a “microdot”, per luther’s examination, but there’s nothing on THAT either. Mysterious™

luther just asked if there was anything going on between ethan and farris-- honestly, fair question, given his track record with hooking up with the ladies he works with lol, although in at least one case that was a honeytrap working on him lol-- and ethan reports that she was “like his little sister”, which-- aww, and also :(

fla;ksdhf;laskh;lkh ethan @ luther “remember when you were sweet? can you remember that far back?” ETHAN IT WAS AT MOST TWO MOVIES AGO. arguably last movie, no i am not over his little terrified teary voice when ethan is doing dumb shit lol

new character! benji, who i have gathered from @leupagus is part of the Ongoing Team-- currently he is apparently a desk tech at imf who is complaining that the hard drives they recovered are fried lol. ethan already knows him, which is interesting.

flkahdl;fkhasl he did recover something from the Fried Drives anyway lol, so i guess he just wanted to complain. specifically he’s uncovered that davian is going to be at the vatican, and also that he’s there to get The Rabbit’s Foot (of cold open fame)

benji is one of those “tell a rambling story to get around to the point” people lol

interesting, ethan is trying to get musgrave-- the guy i originally thought was the imf brass of the movie, not technically ethan’s handler since ethan technically isn’t doing field work lol, i think he called himself a branch manager or something at some point-- “deniability” on the operation he’s about to undertake based on benji’s find. meaning he’s trying to protect musgrave’s reputation after it took a ding from the failure to recover farris.

ethan letting julia know he’s going to be “away on business” again, this time for TWO days. he interrupted her at work to have this conversation on, apparently, the roof of the hospital she works at, which is an interesting choice lol. she is Not Happy About It and asking for explanations which i can’t imagine he’s going to give her.

alskdhf;laskhdf;lkash;lkh she asks for reassurance that their relationship is real and he’s like “you know what fuck it let’s get married Right Now in the hospital chapel”. they have to use some little plastic rings he got in the gift shop or something lol. adorable. i’m love them.

aaaaand time to break into the vatican! plan: kidnap davian (and also get his buyers, which i’m assuming means ethan will be pulling out a Davian Face Mask at some point)

this is their hilariously analogue solution to not being able to loop a static shot to a vatican cctv camera. hopefully ethan didn’t get a bird in the frame lol

also he’s now dressed up as a priest and i would love to know how uncomfortable it was to keep those robes wrapped up inside the worker jumpsuit he was wearing earlier

i’m guessing this is zhen who’s underwater breaking into a vent, and it looks like declan has had his own costume change into a tourist!

actually come to think of it, how does this whole team from the failed op have time to do ethan’s off-the-books operation? how frequently do imf agents get work? we know the imf keeps tabs on them, from that time they tracked ethan down during his freeclimbing vacation, so the imf surely Knows they’re all in the vatican, and that would be suspicious even without whatever equipment they requisitioned-- surely they don’t just own all of this shit themselves-- and especially with them all having been on a failed op together like. last week. so either the imf is spectacularly incompetent-- totally possible-- or they’re aware of this operation and tacitly approve bc it means they can just DOUBLE disavow everyone if it goes wrong

oh it was luther underwater! i assumed he was in the van. this begs the question of where zhen is-- ah, i hear her teasing declan lol-- they have her in a Very pretty car, although bright orange makes me suspect this is a decoy rather than a getaway vehicle lol

alksdhf;lkash;lkah luther and ethan just blew a hole in a wall of the vatican catacombs. way to destroy some irreplaceable art history boys lol

ma’am you didn’t have to slay me like this but thank you

ooooh are we going to get to see how they make the plastic face masks???

dflaksjdf;lkahs luther is trying to patch things up with ethan about him being snippy about ethan’s engagement. WAIT until he hears ethan is already married lol.

luther: a normal relationship isn’t possible for people like us ethan: i don’t agree with that luther: then i’m smarter than you

LUTHER YOU DON’T HAVE TO ROAST HIM LIKE THAT (pls continue it’s very entertaining)

The Facemaskification Process-- put a big plastic sheet over the dummy head, input a bunch of photos of the target face at various angles, i’m unclear if these are lasers or saws but Something cuts away the plastic to match

luther has ethan as a captive audience while they prep for him to pretend to be davian, so he’s continuing to harangue ethan about his relationship lol. “23 months” is his estimate for how long it’ll last, which is Suspiciously Specific, luther, you projecting a bit babe?

Continued Facemaskification: airbrushing the colours from the same photos. this raises some questions about lighting-- both in terms of the lighting the source photos are taken in-- does the mask hold up to the same scrutiny under different lighting conditions than the source photos?-- and things like subsurface scatter, which presumably wouldn’t work with a mask that’s built like this one seems to be. obviously you can paint a facsimile of subsurface scatter, but again, that won’t hold up under various lighting conditions. many questions remain.

lol luther is continuing to try to talk ethan out of this by telling him how much he’s going to screw up the girl, and ethan finally breaks in with “jules and i got married two days ago.”-- which is an interesting timeline note, by the way-- and luther after a beat is just “..........congratulations.”

zhen has just dumped red wine on davian to divert him to a bathroom lol

very creepy ethan lol

ah, and now we get a look at how the vocoder gets set up the first time-- he’s having davian read a phonetic passage to collect voice samples to clone. idk how accurate that was to 2006, but voice cloning ai is actually pretty achievable today-- unfortunately, for deepfake reasons.

ksdhf;lkashd;lflkah okay so post-kidnapping switcheroo the cover to get ethan/”davian” away from his bodyguards is to have zhen offer to “wash his shirt”/offer sexual favours and having “davian” take her up on it lol. which, i’ll grant you, he seems plausibly like that kind of creep and zhen looks. uh. listen we’d all follow her to a hotel room is what i’m saying.

fajhdlfas;lkh the center console in zhen’s car rolls back so they can all exfil into the sewers-- meaning the bodyguards can’t even follow her car. “what’s up”

and then they BLOW UP THE CAR, which is going to a) have vatican security Swarming, and b) davian’s bodyguards (and anyone else who knows him) will now think he’s dead!

lovely full team shot zipping away on a speedboat. ethan has “dad taking the kids on a joyride” energy lol

and we’re only halfway into the movie so can’t wait to see how this unqualified success goes spectacularly tits-up

fakhdl;fkhas;ldkh musgrave just claimed to be aware the operation was happening, presumably to give ETHAN cover from the brass for going off-book (well, also to get credit)-- you boys need to coordinate better on who is covering for who

davian Starts Off this interrogation with “do you have a wife, girlfriend? bc i’m going to hurt her” which like. accurate from the cold open. apparently he thinks his best strategy is to Antagonize his captor, which, well, it’s a choice lol

ethan responds, as you might expect, by threatening to dump davian out of a moving plane if he doesn’t get the information he wants. luther has to talk him down-- “this isn’t you”, which is interesting, bc i would have said that was true TWO movies ago, m:i ethan avoided conflict like the plague, but m:i 2 ethan MIGHT have pulled a stunt like this. and of course now in mi:3, ethan is Emotionally Compromised by losing his protege and having a Very New Wife to worry about. which might ultimately be the real reason that romantic relationships outside of the intelligence community are unwise.

luther ultimately does talk him down, but it’s a close thing. (and davian a) doesn’t talk, and b) heard ethan’s first name when luther was pleading with him not to lose his single strand of chill.)

davian gets picked up in an armoured vehicle into imf custody, but given we’re following its progress i doubt he’ll stay in it long enough to get to a detainment facility

on the drive luther has apparently gotten farris’ microdot file decrypted and sent back to him! let’s see what was so important-- OOOOOH, she traced a call to davian from laurence fishburne’s office at the imf. can’t trust any of these motherfuckers

and yep, the convoy’s going-- looks like they’re being attacked by missiles of some kind. (ah, there’s a fighter (? very small silhouette) in the air, that’s probably where the missiles came from, so air-to-surface rather than rocket-propelled) lots of civilian traffic also getting caught as collateral, and they’re on a bridge, so could very well be a collapse coming.

jeez, and a HELICOPTER. they’ve certainly got air coverage locked down

(zhen and declan are both here and trying to help, but i mean. options are pretty slim.)

ethan shouts at all the civilians to get down as the heli squad starts firing indiscriminately onto the bridge-- at least once woman gets shot, luther goes out to try to get her into cover, and ethan takes off to try to get a good shot to do something Useful with his handgun Versus A Helicopter with multiple armed combatants onboard

oh interesting, he’s trying to get davian out of the truck-- presumably to hold him hostage so the helicopter will stop shooting at civilians. no dice, they just shot the driver, and they make those trucks hard to break into for, you know, the obvious reasons

fa;lkdhf;lah ethan’s got to crawl back into his Flipped Truck, which is one good shove away from falling through a hole in the bridge, to get a gun that can actually do shit to a helicopter

heli squad has dropped onto the bridge to extract davian, this foam presumably will either explode or eat through the side-- huh, looks like it sort of flash-froze, i assume so they can shatter the metal somehow

ah okay, the “fighter” is a drone being piloted from the helicopter

ethan nearly gets blown up and DOES get to bodyslam a car. this after the car crash from the initial missile impacts. this boy is coming out with broken ribs and a concussion minimum, he’s lucky his wife is a nurse

ethan gets his new gun put together and manages to take out the drone, which ALMOST but not quite dings one of the helicopters (which, i hadn’t realized there were two until now, scenes have been a little disjointed) on its way down

ethan makes a FLYING leap across the destroyed bridge-- gratuitous lens flare again lol-- unfortunately doesn’t quite make his jump, manages to hold on to some rubble so he doesn’t tumble into the water but it slows his pursuit of davian, who is now being hustled to a helicopter

ethan manages to fire a few rounds at the helicopter on its way by, but no dice, davian is in the wind (literally). ethan calls home right away bc i guess he assumes davian can have her kidnapped Instantaneously-- which apparently is true, bc julia isn’t home and her brother (apparently crashing at their house lol) asks ethan if “his friend” found him and that he told “some english guy” that julia might know where ethan was and to try her at the hospital. soooo great job rick, your sister’s maybe gonna die.

ethan has requisitioned the least-crashed car on the bridge, which seems fair under the circumstances, although i’m sure the owner-- if they aren’t shot-- will have other opinions

oh julia’s not kidnapped yet! she’s still at work, that’s why she’s not answering ethan’s calls

okay the receptionist at the hospital knowing ethan well enough to respond to his very abrupt “I Need To Talk To Julia” with “hey honey, i’ll transfer you” is adorable

…Some English guy just stuck a Mysterious Yellow Dot (which will make her pass out momentarily i’m sure) to julia’s arm and her reaction is just :)? what’s that? sweetheart… no… develop an aversion to people putting things on you without your permission…

oof, ethan literally passes right by Julia On A Gurney being taken out of the hospital, but of course Some English Guy has her under a sheet, so he doesn’t realize

and davian calls to give ethan a “julia’s life for the rabbit’s foot” 48 hour ultimatum. problematic given ethan still doesn’t know what the hell that is, although he does at least tell ethan that the location is in the case they got with davian.

aaand of course this is the moment the imf rolls up to take ethan into custody, so yet again he’s about to be at odds with his own organization. i’ll say it again, ethan: GO. FREELANCE.

this is really gonna cut into his 48 hour timeline also why the fuck have they MUZZLED HIM

laurence fishburne of course is saying Some Bullshit, musgrave of course is nodding along like “yes sir of course sir ethan hunt is a traitor sir”-- ACTUALLY, stray thought. farris didn’t hear laurence fishburne talk to davian, she just knows the call came from his office, which seems to be the same building musgrave works in. musgrave making calls from his boss’ office, perhaps?

hmm, musgrave is mouthing to ethan silently so ethan can read his lips without the rest of the office picking it up, and then slips him something to get out of his restraints. this does not make him less suspicious, if he’s working with davian he has a motive to want ethan out and hunting the rabbit’s foot.

captain america stole his elevator fight scene from ethan hunt. except ethan’s doing it while still half-tied to a gurney, so who really wins here?

escape into the elevator shaft, shockingly well-lit lol

fha;lkdhf;alskhdlk brassel (laurence fishburne, i’ve finally learned his name lol) hearing His Own Voice giving orders he hasn’t given over the radio. ethan works fast. why he has a voice strip with brassel’s voice encoded on its easily to hand i don’t know, but it’s better than last movie when he did a full outfit swap, vocoder, and face mask switcheroo with the villain’s not-boyfriend

oh huh looks like the imf facility is actually underneath the department of transportation, that’s where that cover story comes from lol. df;lkha;ldkfh;lak and ethan ditches his radio next to a boombox so the only thing on the imf security channel is sister sledge playing “we are family” lol

musgrave apparently directed the entire team to the same shanghai apartment he told ethan to go to on Rabbit’s Foot duty

the team settles in to debate their entrance strategies and ethan, Of Course, chooses the roof access lol. he’s gonna Jump from one building to the target building. well, swing, but still. and the basejump from the building to exfil lol

we are at 2 hours until the Julia Dies ultimatum

ethan looking very brooding and cool, and presumably doing math in his head about the velocity and angles he needs to hit if he doesn’t want to unceremoniously splatter on a roof. luther gives him a pep talk which is very matter-of-fact and does not allow for the plan to go sideways, which, like. it will, but we appreciate the solidarity. luther, yet again, for best boy.

awww, ethan thanks luther for coming and luther’s response is “that’s my job.” CALL BACK TO THE WEIRD MOMENT FROM THE FARRIS OP, whatever that weird tension was-- probably about julia, considering the rest of the movie-- it has been Resolved in the midst of this Crisis.

julia if you survive this movie you should have No Doubts about this man’s love for you ever again lol

oof, at the terminus of the swing he still has like a twenty foot drop ONTO A GLASS ROOF which he is now sliding directly down. ethan. babe. i know time is short and options are limited but pls.

catches himself on the gutter and literally says “...okay” in the most strangled voice lol. oh, more lens flare. honestly there’s been so much i can’t even call it out specifically lol

luther: he made it! he made it! ….i knew he’d make it I TOLD YOU HE WAS STILL SWEET ETHAN.

we aren’t even seeing ethan’s actual theft of the rabbit’s foot, we’re watching the team outside wait for him and count down the minutes, which is a fascinating choice that i actually really like. we’ve seen ethan do impressive spy shit, none of that’s new. watching the new team react to ethan’s radio silence, that IS new. luther is trying to maintain chill. declan is Fretting. zhen is apparently PRAYING under her breath. (apparently a prayer she’d say to bring home her Lost Cat as a kid, which-- love you zhen, pls stick around for next movie.) flkah;dlkfha;lkh aww, declan asks her to teach him the Lost Cat Prayer, presumably bc he needs Some Kind Of Distraction-- they get interrupted by ethan finally coming back on the line (things have, predictably, gone pear-shaped) but it’s a cute moment

so, ethan’s base jumping From The Roof was already going to be cutting it very close on the lower limits of height for that-- he instead jumps out a window like halfway down the building, which means if he hits the ground he will do it Hard-- so instead he crashes into the window of, i think, a different building, although it’s unclear how intentional that was given how much drag he was fighting

oop, his chute is about to drag him back out the window lol. having been dragged around campus by my own portfolio getting caught in a wind tunnel-- my sympathies, ethan, you belong to the north wind now

his chute catches on a streetlight, which does him the favour of not splattering him, although it does drop him into oncoming traffic-- that truck driver is a hero for not obliterating him or spinning out and slamming into every other vehicle on the road btw

team picks him up and they’re now in a highspeed car chase with building security while ethan tries to make the call to davian to tell him he’s got the rabbit’s foot

oh noooo zhen got hit. that better be a flesh wound ma’am we’ve had enough women dying this franchise thanks

apparently ethan decided the angles INSIDE the car weren’t good enough and he’s sick of being shot at. being the Best Spy, he of course manages to blow the pursuit vehicle's tires, so they're home free!

musgrave still so suspicious. “go secure” ethan says, “we are” musgrave says, sir. that’s your cellphone and you didn’t do literally anything, if that’s secure i’ll EAT your phone. anyway, ethan is calling to tell him that he’s tagged the rabbit’s foot so that the imf can retrieve it after ethan makes the exchange with davian. which, if anyone at the imf is both competent and not a traitor-- A BIG ASK, I AM AWARE-- means the cold open should have some cavalry coming, hypothetically

the team Reluctantly lets ethan go off to make his Solo Handoff/get captured

ethan at the drop point gets into a vehicle and on instructions from Some English Guy also Drinks A Mystery Vial, which i’m sure will go great for him

interestingly it appears to be making him hallucinate being intimate with julia, and then we wake up in the cold open!

so yeah, it seems like ethan legitimately thought he’d given the rabbit’s foot to davian and his confusion and prevariation here are bc he legitimately doesn’t know how to fix this

meanwhile the team has arrived home to uh. This on the landing strip

well. it WAS indeed a gunshot. and julia does now seem to be dead.

One Must Imagine Ethan Hunt Happy

and in comes musgrave i KNEW IT you little rat

oh ooof. “it’s complicated. you can’t just open the canister. we had to be sure you brought the real thing. now we know.” so LITERALLY he brought you what you wanted, and you killed julia For Show.

unfathomable that ethan hunt is not fully deranged by the end of this movie. i would be eating musgrave’s bone marrow by the end of the runtime.

…gross, but apparently that is some other RANDOM woman-- actually i think it’s davian’s other bodyguard, which, not great benefits there-- they just killed with a julia mask on? i guess that’s good for ethan but also What The Fuck???

ah, bc musgrave is using her as further leverage to find out What Farris Knew.

flkha;lfkhd;lkfahs;lhkds musgrave is complaining that brassel is an “affirmative action poster boy” DUDE YOUR MOTIVE IS JUST RACISM? RACISM AND JEALOUSY? YOU WHINY LITTLE PISSBABY SIT DOWN

“and when the sand settles, our country will do what it does best. cleanup. infrastructure. democracy wins.” god were people really buying that in 2006. i guess that was only five years after 9/11, nationalism was High and the bush admin was still in place. anyway, Yet More Racism from this twerp

ethan asks for a phone call to confirm that julia is alive. amusingly, the fact that julia can remember what the lake is called means it’s Much Less Likely to actually be her on the phone, given she couldn’t remember it during The Party

i see now why they muzzled him lol

huh, ethan called benji as his first point of contact once he’s knocked out musgrave and gotten out of his restraints

benji goes from “you’re on interpol’s most wanted! i’m hanging up!” to “i’m going to lose my citizenship over you” in the space of like thirty seconds and ethan doesn’t even say PLEASE lol

lol benji is being ethan’s on-call gps service. he is doing this At Work, by the way, at the organization that currently wants ethan’s head on a stick, so he keeps having to pause to make Pleasant Office Noises at his coworkers lol. also featuring: The Ethan Sprint

jkhfjkhskdfak a couple of little old chinese men took one look at ethan gasping and bleeding in the doorway and ratted out the villain’s location

aaand while looking around he promptly knocks a bunch of shit off a table. guess those concussions are finally catching up to you, babe. but we’ve found julia!

unfortunately at exactly THAT moment, davian remembers he put a bomb in ethan’s head

well, if he can win this fight with davian while his brain is about to fry, at least his wife is a nurse! she can probably shock him both to death and back to life! if there’s an aed around! which i haven’t seen one, but for plot reasons, probably is somewhere!

ethan has, as per tradition, engaged Emergency Fight Mode at the threat to a loved one! i don’t know why these villains keep threatening people he cares about, it goes SO MUCH WORSE than when they just threaten him

dfl;kha;ldkfha;l okay rolling davian on top of him and into the path of an oncoming vehicle is novel and definitely ends the fight quickly, which is good given ethan has a couple of minutes before his brain melts. also honestly refreshing after the like fifteen-minute fight with the main antagonist of the last movie

fha;lkdhfl;aksh;l ethan hands julia his gun, tells her it’s a very accurate close range weapon, and then immediately follows up with “don’t point it at me” lol

he’s a good teacher! giving julia instructions about how to use the gun that mirror things she’s done at home-- “shove the new mag in like the batteries in the flashlight in the kitchen”. also he is clearly setting up a diy electrocution, which, well, it’s not like he’s got a better option, apparently this don’t use defibrillators at whatever sketchy back alley clinic this is

and of course AS SOON as julia flips the switch to short out the bomb/shock him to death, someone starts shooting at her so she can’t immediately start resuscitation. so ethan is now lying dead on the floor (it’s! temporary!!!) and julia has been promoted to Action Girl!

aaaand since she’s a brain death time limit with ethan, she does NOT wait for the goon to come to her, she just figures out where he is, pops up, and empties an ENTIRE mag into him lol

oooh! and then turned around and did the same to musgrave! well done ma’am, marriage material indeed

now the Sad CPR

also ethan goes from Dead to Firing Position in the space of One Heartbeat

lol sees musgrave dead on the floor and his response is “you did that? …wow” in this very admiring tone lol while julia is still reeling from him not being dead

and yeah ethan kind of has to spill the beans to her at this point lol

apparently the white house is now asking for ethan directly and by name

hey, julia gets to meet the team!

and off they go on their honeymoon!

alright MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3 COMPLETE. about as much lens flare as i expected, only “mystery box” that i detected was that no one ever fessed up about what the fuck “the rabbit’s foot” was supposed to be for, but for the purposes of this particular film it doesn’t really matter, it’s just a plot macguffin.

i did not, in fact, remember a single goddamn thing about this movie lol

ethan gets physically put through a wringer in this film, this might be the most cumulatively beaten up he’s been so far. i didn’t make a count or anything, but he’s got probably more than one concussion, multiple broken ribs, has to have sprained every joint in his body, wouldn’t be surprised if he’s fucked up his spine, and also he was dead for a few minutes after electrocuting himself with an unknown voltage.

on the other hand, this is the happiest we might have ever seen him! also the most despairing. dichotomy of ethan. i’m glad julia didn’t die! not just bc she’s good for ethan, she also seems cool in her own right, i’m hoping that unlike nyah she’ll stick around for further movies.

actually i would like to keep this whole team! declan and zhen were fun in the screentime they got. benji was fun and they could use somebody at the home office who isn’t a Complete Twit.

i still think they should all go freelance. luther’s done it before! and the imf keeps fucking ethan in particular over! and apparently their ranks are absolutely RIDDLED with traitors who want to work with black marketeers lol.

i’m not sure ethan’s Ethan Stunts here should contribute to the Does Ethan Have A Death Wish conversation, bc in this particular film most of them are motivated by Trying To Save Julia and he’s clearly at the end of his mental and emotional rope from the moment she’s taken. it is, admittedly, probably not healthy for him to hinge so much of his sense of security and comfort on one person, but it’s too late now.

8.5/10, the style was a little too frenetic to keep track of the action all the time and the lens flare was exactly as much too much as you’d expect, but the story was solid except for the rabbit’s foot contrivance being a little too meta-textually irrelevant for my tastes and there was a lot of good Pathos in ethan finally trying and failing to settle down, and good performances from everybody.

would watch zhen swan around in a red dress again.

#ODE TO IMPOSSIBLE #mission: impossible #mission: impossible 3 #tumblr is harassing me personally with the 30-image limit #there were so many more screengrabs i would have included in this one #it was still not quite as visually interesting as the first but it had some good shots

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pleasantlyinsincere · 2 years ago

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Part 3 / last part

excerpts from Giuliano in conversation with Ruth and Angie McCartney

Previous parts:

(Part 1: Paul attacking Ruth over a TV appearance, Jim's prudent gambling, Paul and Linda being awful houseguests)

(Part 2: Jim and Angie nearly breaking up, (strange) forms of generosity, Paul paying an adult type compliment)

Train, wife, dog (Note: The anecdotes of being abusive towards Linda and kicking the dog are not included on the released version of the tapes I listened to. They are there by this referance only.)

I’ve gone down to pick them up off the train. And when I actually boarded the train, there was a terrible scuffle going on, where Paul was pushing this elderly man. He was a guard on the train. Yes, physically pushing him. They had come with the dogs and wanted them to just romp everywhere. And this old guy had apparently come and told them: ‘You know, you shouldn’t have had that there.’ - ‘I’ll do what the fuck I like!’ It was one of those. And Linda was standing behind Paul, going: ‘Go on! You tell him, Paul!’ Laughing. She thought it was funny that Paul was nearly knocking over this elderly gray haired man. I saw this with my own eyes, Geoffrey. […] GG: How about any other physical abuse by Paul to anyone? We got Linda now, we got this old bloke. … Kick the dog.

Puff for Mommy

The bed was a new mattress that was on the stone concrete floor of the garage. It had a blanket and two pillows without any covers on.… We made a bed up. On the was up Jim was saying: ‘You know their eating habits and times are very different from ours. So let’s stack up.’ … Jim and I used to sneak out at night and sat in the car and eat chocolate because we got so hungry sometimes. It wasn’t really the kind of setup where you felt comfortable to make yourself a cup of tea or a piece of toast. The polite and the correct thing to do was to wait until Linda was ready to cook. … Linda would probably cook once a day and there was a time when we were sitting around the table and they had a glass skylight. And it was open and flies were coming in and there was a jug of milk on the table and the flies were falling in. And I was ‘Oh, God, we have to throw this milk away.’ Jim was so fastidious, you know. And Linda said: ‘Oh Ange, don’t be so fussy!’ … And Mary was so little and she was inside of Paul’s jacket and they were both smoking a joint and passing it to each other. And then Linda put it to little baby Mary lips and was saying: ‘Come on, baby. Come on puff, puff, puff for mommy!’. As a joke obviously, but she thought this was a pretty hilarious, hysterical thing to do. - What was Paul doing? - Laughing.

Watch Your Fingers!

I said well, I guess we blew it. These things happen you try in business and it’s not working out. We tried to start a small business, we’ve been unsuccessful, but undaunted we will carry on. It was 1980. I said basically ‘shit happens’. I was 20 years old and still working on my career. … And he said well, you know. This is when he gave Ange his speech about bottled fruit. ‘Why can’t you stay at home and be a widow like other widows? And auntie Mill and auntie Gin…’ GG: You know what I would have said to that? I would be perfectly willing to do that, if someone would to underwrite my living. But if they won’t and God doesn't drop me a million dollars I got to do this shit. … He gave the same old tired out bullshit speech about you never gonna make it in the business. This dancing and choreography nonsense is just the phase. You’re not talented. You haven’t got anything going for you other than my name. … ‘Me, me, me, me, me. Enough about me. What do you think about me?’ … He already told Ange to scrub floors and bottle fruit and his solution for me was.. - I couldn’t believe this coming from the mouth of a man who was the father of three daughters. - He said: ‘You are quite attractive with the light behind you, with a little make-up on …, you are up and down in the clubs. Why don’t you hang around after a show? You know, there are a lot of rich arabs hanging around these days with millions of dollars and Rolls-Royces. Why don’t you do get yourself a rich boyfriend, you know, do what you women were made for?’ And I just had enough. He was virtually telling me to go and be a hooker. … The last words he ever said to me were: ‘You can’t put the phone down on me, I’m Paul McCartney.’ And I said: ‘Watch your fingers.’ and hung up. And that was it, that was the last time we’ve spoken. Pointless. It’s either his way or no way.

#audio part 3 of 3 #there are some lovely bits e.g. george teaching ruth ragas on the piano while he waits for jim to make him custard #or ringo's mum always saving a little bit of the allowance she got from ringo for him in case the band was over #but i think these are all the clips i saved while listening #linda with the joint reminds me of the video of paul giving a cigarette to one of derek taylor's kids. it's a running-gag i guess. 😉

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still-single · 1 year ago

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Las Mordidas – Ex-Voto LP (L.G.)

Never-thought-I’d-see-it-in-this-lifetime release of an album-length Las Mordidas record. Back in ’93-’94 when 7” singles were largely all I could afford, much less sneak back into my teenage bedroom, these guys put out a really great one, and little else (a split I didn’t find, comp tracks I couldn’t scope and a demo cassette well out of my reach). The 10 songs on Ex-Voto get most of it but not all of it, apparently the best of the tapes that could be baked, but that’s fine. It’s good to leave some mystery now and then. Las Mordidas was the connective in between Circus Lupus and The Monorchid for all-timer frontman Chris Thomson, joined here by John Kirtschen (Chris Bald’s little bro, also of Rain) on guitar, Beefeater/All-Scar Dug E. Bird on bass, and late-era Fugazi aux drummer Jerry Busher, and they really beat on those bookends, so much more “pro” than either it’s almost a shame things didn’t move beyond the semester or two they were active. Chris T is always a god-level vocalist, one of the best to ever do it, no arguments heard or even considered, so let’s keep going. I saw The Monorchid twice when Jerry was drumming and it was an entirely together, locomoting experience, playing about twice as fast as they could with Tom (who, understandably, was dealing with a drum kit that was always falling apart mid-set), and we get the benefit of that here, along with the versatility and inherent funkiness of the Birdzell bass. Jon K. is a lone guitarist who plays like he’s backing behind an evil twin hiding behind a full stack, rippin’ out these rhythmic crossover-style leads with a thick distorted sound that cuts like Vernon Reid meets Greg Ginn – he is the real secret weapon here, a very under-utilized guitarist following this group. One of the initial releases off this new reissue imprint, headed up by Monorchid/Skull Kontrol bassist Andy Coronado, with thick vinyl, tip-on sleeves and no digital counterparts to speak of from the looks of things. Other titles out include a reissue of the Fury EP (Chris fronting Swiz, a complete legend), the Milk Music demo (once shat on in these pages or ones like them by Dais co-capt. Ryan Martin), and some songs from Tarot Bolero pre/post party Decapitated Lovers. If you want these you have to engage in retail or mailorder, and good for you because you’re definitely gonna want this one. Let’s Go. (Doug Mosurock)

#las mordidas #circus lupus #monorchid #all-scars #DC #mosurock #still single #review

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missellafitz · 5 months ago

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**The concert dates for this Caesars Palace engagement were June 6-18, 1974, which begs the question, why did this take place on the 19th? Was Frank doing an additional show without Ella? How was she a surprise? Was the show itself a surprise? Love the possessive pronoun of "my" though, hehe.

Also, this engagement apparently brought Frank out of retirement and was the catalyst for "The Concert" that he, Ella, and Basie had at the Uris Theater in NYC the next year. One thing I'll say is that Frank LOVED to sing with Ella, so maybe she really was enough to bring him back to the stage.

A Secret Caesars Palace Trove Captures Sinatra, Ella and Scores of Others, Unaware

By Anna Wilde Mathews Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

March 19, 2001 12:01 am ET

LAS VEGAS -- On June 19, 1974, Frank Sinatra took the stage at Caesars Palace. Backed by the Count Basie Orchestra, he delivered a set of standards before telling the audience, "Surprise! My girl's gonna sing for you." On that cue, Ella Fitzgerald joined him for a rollicking duet of "The Lady Is a Tramp." The two traded lines and improvised harmonies, punctuated by Mr. Sinatra's exhortation: "Swing, baby!"

It was a special evening, even by the lofty standards of the Caesars showroom, then a premier venue for the biggest names in entertainment. But the two singers themselves probably weren't aware of one thing that made their performance exceptional: Every note was captured by a reel-to-reel tape recorder wired directly into the Caesars sound system.

It was only one of scores of acts recorded in secret over a quarter of a century at Caesars Palace -- a playlist that includes Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, Ray Charles, Duke Ellington, Judy Garland, Peggy Lee, Johnny Mathis, Bette Midler, Diana Ross, Sarah Vaughan and dozens of other show-business luminaries.

Behind it all was Dave Rogers, the longtime sound engineer at the hotel and casino's 1,000-seat Circus Maximus showroom. Mr. Rogers stored the tapes at home, keepsakes that he occasionally played for the memories.

Then, in 1998, he died, and the tapes were in the hands of his stepson, Gilbert Cebollero, a former craps dealer who set out to turn them into a profitable endeavor. Since then, Mr. Cebollero has managed to strike an unlikely deal with a fledgling company backed by television impresario Norman Lear to release the material on compact discs and, possibly, over the Web. Already, singer Andy Williams and the estates of Mr. Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. have tentatively agreed to participate, and the first CD is in the works.

The obstacles are big, however, and many of the recordings may never reach a mass audience. Mr. Lear's company, Neon Tonic, is still struggling to secure release rights from many of the artists, their estates or their record labels -- which have been surprised to learn of the tapes and aren't all eager to strike a deal. Some of the artists worry that their performances may not be good enough for public consumption.

Yet the tapes themselves aren't the typical muffled bootlegs. Mr. Rogers created recordings of startling clarity, often with nearly commercial sound quality. And the collection is more than just live music; it is an unedited record of Vegas culture in its heyday. As the curtain falls on Mr. Sinatra's duet with Ms. Fitzgerald, a microphone picks up his parting remark: "OK, baby, the bar's open." On another tape, a disoriented Judy Garland stumbles off-key through "Over the Rainbow." Moments like those may never make it to record stores, but if Mr. Lear and his partners succeed, many hours of unique recorded entertainment will.

In 1966, when Andy Williams performed on opening night at the new casino and its showroom, the venue was among the most glamorous in the world. The hotel feted its first visitors with two tons of filet mignon, 300 pounds of crab and 50,000 glasses of champagne.

Mr. Rogers helped build the sound system that was used on that first evening. A veteran engineer at the Flamingo and the Sands, Mr. Rogers had moved over to Caesars about a month before the opening. For much of the next quarter of a century, he could be found in an open booth suspended above the rear of the Circus Maximus. There, he twiddled dials on the soundboard to ensure that the mix was clean and balanced. He almost never missed a night. "His home was Caesars," says Donovan Belian, a son of Mr. Rogers who is now a carpenter in Las Vegas.

A constant tinkerer, Mr. Rogers worked hard to please the most finicky artists. He built an echo chamber under the stage to add depth to performers' tone. As a special favor, he once set up a VCR in Mr. Sinatra's hotel room.

Such services put Mr. Rogers on a first-name basis with many stars. He collected autographed pictures from the likes of Raquel Welch and Burt Bacharach. One of his backstage photos shows Bill Cosby arm-in-arm with Sammy Davis Jr., who is wearing a "Caesars Sound Crew" T-shirt. In another, Mr. Rogers hugs a smiling Nancy Sinatra. The pictures weren't his only souvenirs. A pack rat, he also filled a wooden locker backstage with old tools and gadgets, and at home collected discarded televisions, radios and other electronic debris.

Then there is the stash of Caesars recordings, made from the showroom's soundboard over a period stretching from the late 1960s to the early 1990s. Mr. Rogers kept the reels and cassettes in his workshop at home and occasionally listened to them while he puttered around, his stepson Mr. Cebollero says.

The taping may have begun as a way for the sound engineer to catch technical mistakes and thus hone his craft, says Mr. Rogers's daughter Suzynne Fowler. Michael Rogers, the sound engineer's oldest son, says, "I think he wanted to record his history, and maybe even the industry's history." The younger Mr. Rogers, now a Las Vegas theatrical electrician, worked at Caesars with his father in the mid-1970s.

Dave Rogers took a leave of absence in 1994 as he battled liver disease brought on by years of diabetes. He never returned to work. In January 1998, he died at age 66. A brief obituary published in local newspapers noted his National Guard service and his membership in the theatrical stage employee union. It gave his occupation as "director of sound in the entertainment industry."

In all, Mr. Rogers had captured hundreds of hours of concerts and comedy by well over 100 performers. Upon his death, it all ended up with Mr. Cebollero.

The Balloon Drop

Mr. Cebollero's mother, Elba, had met Mr. Rogers, who was already divorced with four children, while she was working at the Caesars front desk. The two married in 1970. As a teenager, Mr. Cebollero hung out backstage at Caesars while his stepfather worked. He recalls New Year's celebrations when his stepfather let him release the flood of balloons above the Caesars audience.

https://archive.ph/s1csZ/edae5250cb4b4f7d6decc057a4570949fecb8ae5.gif

Through the 1970s and '80s, Mr. Cebollero bounced around Las Vegas as a bellboy, a stagehand and eventually a craps dealer at various casinos. More recently, he has worked as a residential real-estate agent. By the time his stepfather died, Mr. Cebollero faced a federal tax lien of more than $19,000, which he says was related to a dispute over tip income from his casino days. The lien was lifted in 2000; Mr. Cebollero says he took care of it with a reduced payment.

Mr. Cebollero says he was motivated to turn the tapes into a business in order to preserve his stepfather's work, not to pay a tax bill. In the past, "I never applied myself," he says. "But I plan to now."

Today, Mr. Cebollero, 43 years old and never married, lives with his mother in the modest two-story white stucco house Mr. Rogers had built for the family in the mid-1970s. Over the door hangs a small sign: "Mi casa es su casa." In the basement and in a shipping container in the backyard, he keeps all the things his stepfather hoarded over the years. "Everything they were throwing out, he'd bring home," Mr. Cebollero says.

His mother wouldn't comment for this article. Nor would his sister, Lorraine. Stepbrothers Mr. Belian and Michael Rogers say they support Mr. Cebollero's efforts. Ms. Fowler declines to comment, saying she doesn't know the details of her stepbrother's plans. Stepsister Trish Elliott says she "has no problem" with Mr. Cebollero's efforts.

Mr. Cebollero used an address for Nancy Sinatra obtained through a Web site to send her a compilation of Sinatra snippets from the Caesars tapes. But he sent it under the name of a friend, keeping his own identity secret: "I didn't know what kind of feedback I would get," he says.

His efforts drew the attention of Robert Finkelstein, a longtime Sinatra family attorney who represents the music-rights companies controlled by the singer's children. Mr. Finkelstein says the Sinatra estate had no knowledge of the recordings before hearing from Mr. Cebollero in 1998.

Threat of Litigation

After several months, negotiations over the rights to the Sinatra tapes stalled. Neither party will specify the terms Mr. Cebollero sought. Mr. Finkelstein then fired off a letter threatening to sue, arguing that the recordings were illegal, unauthorized bootlegs. "If someone says to you they possess tapes of your recordings, your initial reaction is, 'You have no right to those,' " he says. "That can be resolved either by litigation or by compromise."

But Mr. Finkelstein also explained the situation to longtime acquaintance Hal Gaba, chief executive of Act III Communications, a media holding company of which Mr. Lear is chairman. A jazz buff, Mr. Gaba already ran a side business distributing videos of performances by Mr. Sinatra and others, and Act III was negotiating to purchase the Concord jazz record label. He immediately saw the potential of the Caesars tapes. With Mr. Finkelstein's knowledge, Mr. Gaba contacted Mr. Cebollero.

Messrs. Gaba and Lear had already been noodling around with the idea of a music Web site that would reach jazz fans all over the world. The recordings, they figured, could provide a one-of-a-kind draw to the site. "I had this fantasy of this little guy in this obscure corner of Caesars Palace," says Mr. Lear.

In early 1999, Mr. Gaba began traveling to Las Vegas to meet with Mr. Cebollero, first over lunch at a Caesars coffee shop, and later at the home Mr. Cebollero shares with his mother. There, Mr. Gaba was ushered into a dark basement cluttered with dusty equipment, including an old Caesars soundboard and a pile of black-painted floorboards from the original showroom stage. During hours of reminiscing about oldtime Vegas, Mr. Cebollero played samples from the tapes.

Over the next few weeks, Mr. Gaba and Mr. Cebollero pinned down details of a tentative deal. Mr. Gaba would see to the daunting task of securing legal clearances from artists and record labels. Mr. Cebollero would receive royalty payments. Neither side will disclose terms.

Mr. Cebollero also insisted that he retain possession of the original tapes. "It's sentimental," he says. "My dad's handwriting is on it." And he wanted his stepfather credited on the CD packaging.

A Five-Hour Trek

More troublesome, he wouldn't let the fragile recordings out of his sight even for an overnight shipment. So starting in the summer of 1999, he and a friend drove five hours from Las Vegas every couple of weeks to deliver boxes of tapes to a recording studio in the San Fernando Valley home of a producer who works with Mr. Gaba.

Initially, Mr. Cebollero refused to leave the house while the producer and another sound engineer transferred the recordings from the original analog tapes to digital tape. Later, the music was put on computer, and song by song, they smoothed out distortions and toned down extraneous noises -- the foot-tapping of a Count Basie Orchestra musician, for example.

Many of the tapes were dusty or moldy, and a few were so brittle that they broke. Some of the older ones needed a special player obtained from a used-equipment dealer. Many had only fragmentary, hand-scrawled labels, or weren't identified at all. Clues such as a reference to Watergate helped pinpoint performance dates.

The sound quality of the Caesars tapes is nonetheless impressive. Band members can be heard laughing quietly at a headliner's jokes. Comments never meant for an audience also come through clearly. When Mr. Sinatra turned to quietly thank the band after a rendition of "My Kind of Town," he added, "Sang my d--- off that time!" Then he told the audience, "I just had an intimate discussion with the gentlemen of the orchestra which cannot be repeated."

The engineers also had to make sense of a jumbled archive. A single shipment contained a 1991 routine by comedian Joan Rivers; a 1972 show by singing duo Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme; and a 1988 Red Skelton performance. Another tape in the batch came with a label that read only, "Thunder and Cow." It turned out to contain a series of moos and booms apparently meant for sound effects.

In the same shipment, Mr. Cebollero brought a vintage Sammy Davis set from Halloween 1981. It opens with the Basie orchestra swinging through "Sweet Georgia Brown." Then Mr. Davis delivers several of his standards, such as "Teach Me Tonight," along with some classic Vegas stage patter. "You're looking at the only black actor who wasn't in 'Roots,' 1 or 2," he says at one point. Later, he jokes: "I can't help it if I'm short! If I had any real class, I'd be in a bell tower someplace, saying 'The plane, boss, the plane!' "

By last fall, nearly 500 hours of concert tape had been digitized. Mr. Cebollero was now flying the tapes over from Las Vegas, though he still didn't want to check them as luggage. Mr. Gaba and Mr. Lear, meanwhile, were putting together their start-up in a Beverly Hills office lined with posters of "All in the Family" and other Lear television shows.

Calling on friends and their own resources, they raised about $3 million in seed money. The new company began a months-long process of building a Web site and picking a name and logo. Eventually, Neon Tonic beat options like "Gigolution" and "Shanghai Lobster" because, company executives thought, it suggested a sophisticated music club.

Mr. Gaba began trying to resolve the tangled legal questions surrounding the tapes' past, starting early last year with Caesars' parent company, Park Place Entertainment Corp. Mr. Cebollero insists that his stepfather never tried to conceal his taping from the performers or his bosses. "It wasn't like it was hidden," he says.

But Caesars executives say they weren't aware of the tapes before Mr. Gaba contacted them. Tom Pilkington, once Mr. Rogers's boss at Caesars and now a vice president with Park Place, says he had "no clue" that his employee was keeping a collection of such recordings. "It wasn't a policy of the hotel" to regularly record and archive shows, he says. He does remember Mr. Rogers making some tapes for performers' personal use, at their request. Generally, acts that played Caesars had contracts that explicitly banned recordings.

Still, Park Place decided to work with Mr. Gaba. The hospitality firm agreed to sell compact discs containing the showroom tapes and to allow the start-up to use the Caesars name in packaging and marketing the CDs. The Neon Tonic CDs would first be sold exclusively through Park Place retail outlets, then distributed more widely by Concord Records, the jazz label Mr. Gaba and Mr. Lear had bought. But the deal was contingent on Mr. Gaba's securing legal clearances from artists and others with rights to the recordings.

For help, Mr. Gaba looked to Mr. Finkelstein, who had been named to Neon Tonic's board. Together, he and Mr. Gaba crafted a tentative agreement to allow use of the Sinatra material. Then Mr. Finkelstein reached out to others who manage the rights to some of the other big acts Mr. Rogers had taped.

Jeff Lotman, who runs a marketing company that represents the work of Sammy Davis Jr. and others, says he was surprised when Mr. Finkelstein called him and told him of the tapes. But he liked the offer: The Davis estate would get a stake in Neon Tonic, as well as royalties from recording sales. "Our clients are not making new movies, so anything we can do to raise the awareness is obviously a good thing," says Mr. Lotman, whose company is called Global Icons LLC. Mr. Davis's widow, Altovise, agreed to participate.

Mr. Gaba personally courted Andy Williams, a longtime acquaintance, at the Grill, a Beverly Hills power-lunch venue. Mr. Williams, who became a Caesars regular after performing the hotel's first show, says, "I never knew they were recording me." When he found out that several of his shows had been taped, "I felt an invasion, a little bit, of privacy."

A tape of a June 10, 1969, show finds Mr. Williams performing a lush, brass-backed "Moon River," along with a medley from the musical "Hair." The show includes an appearance by a very young Jimmy Osmond, who delivers a squeaky "I Dig Rock 'n' Roll Music." Between songs, Mr. Williams warns: "I think I ought to tell you the truth -- I'm a swinger!"

Mr. Williams agreed to sign on as an investor, with veto power over recordings of his own performances.

Neon Tonic has offered other artists veto power, as well as royalties based on album sales. Some also have been offered stakes in the new company. The company says it is close to signing agreements with several, whom it declines to name. One problem: The Sinatra estate wants the original tapes of Mr. Sinatra that Mr. Cebollero now holds. Until the two sides agree to terms, none of the Sinatra material from Mr. Rogers's recordings is likely to be released.

Some of Mr. Rogers's recordings probably won't ever reach the public. Jeffrey Berkowitz, an attorney who represents Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft, says the singer's children wouldn't want "to have poor-quality stuff released" and are "more concerned about protecting the name and image of their mother" than anything else.

During an undated Garland show that Mr. Rogers recorded, the singer leaves the stage soon after the start, telling the audience, "I'll be back in a minute." Later, in the middle of "That's Entertainment," she stumbles on a line. Then, as the band plays on, she interjects, "There are too damn many words in this song. I'm sure that someone from either Warner Brothers or MGM wrote the lyrics."

Retreat From the Web

The Web downturn has altered Neon Tonic's plans. Just days before a test launch of the Web site in late January, Mr. Gaba decided to delay it indefinitely. For now, Neon Tonic will focus on the CDs.

The first disc, a compilation of individual tracks from several artists' performances, is tentatively scheduled for summer release. It isn't yet clear how many artists will be on it. Mr. Sinatra's duet with Ms. Fitzgerald probably won't be, though Neon Tonic hopes to include it in a later CD. Remarks Mr. Rogers taped that obviously weren't intended for an audience -- including Mr. Sinatra's risque private remark to his band -- probably won't make it to disc.

A Neon Tonic executive says the liner notes are likely to acknowledge Mr. Rogers in some way. As for the tapes, Mr. Cebollero hasn't told even his partners where he keeps them.

Last September, the Circus Maximus showroom closed forever with a performance by Steve and Eydie. It has since been leveled. Park Place is considering building a larger showroom at the hotel. A company spokeswoman won't comment on the type of entertainment it might provide. The hotel still has a sound engineer on staff. He works part time, mainly to handle special events.

#ella fitzgerald #frank sinatra #ella and frank #las vegas #Wall Street Journal #I could've died when I found this!#Him calling her his girl is just too cute #“As the curtain falls on Mr. Sinatra's duet with Ms. Fitzgerald a microphone picks up his parting remark: ”OK baby the bar is open"#He calls her “baby”#I'm so convinced they were definitely together in the romantic sense

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jamiekb · 10 months ago

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Listening to TMA for the first time (Part IV)

Part I II III

41- 46

#41 Too Deep: damn I didn’t think John could get worse but I don’t blame him. Those tunnels don’t help and I still have my theory that they might connect to some rooms/fenomena described in other episodes. Also cool change to the format, getting John's perspective and feelings on the whole story is gonna be interesting, wonder if the others will do something similar. I would like to at least listen to Martin do the same. Oh and is whatever spoke to him the same that took that hiker/sister?

#42 Grifter's Bone: that is actually a really cool name for a band. So like a siren that incites violence. The descriptions of the characters are very peculiar, thin as bone and with coats. Also I do wonder what Martin is hiding, could be something unexpected.

#43 Section 31: oooooh that’s pretty cool to know about the police work into the supernatural. More on the side that there are things to connect to statements from the institute like the arson victims from the hospital (if I understood which case it was) and I’m sure that spider husks things and the guy that shot himself will come up later on. Oh and the comment about clown dolls, caught me off guard. In the meantime it’ll be interesting to hear about this tapes that Gertrude apparently left behind.

#44 Tightrope: is that actually Gertrude?? Yes it is interesting. Is this gonna be related to the grandpa and weird instrument? Yes it is, nice. Ok now I have actually listen to it. It is interesting that Gertrude just knows about the circus. She know how dangerous they are, how they work and even remarks that they got off easy. Hopefully we’ll learn more about later on.

#45 Blood Bag: don’t like that, more bugs ugh. Again the visuals that the show is able to convey are incredible. Never would have thought how much mosquitos just releasing blood into could be sooo creepy. So I’m guessing that it’s Not-Sasha who’s sneaking around John’s things? Sure we don’t know much about Tim at this point but he doesn’t particularly strike me as spy or something. Who knows, I’ve still got plenty of episodes ahead of me.

#46 Literary Heights: Ok so I thought it was related to the episode with the guy that bought the weird leather book but apparently it’s actually the episode about the librarian and the book he found. But the name of the book is familiar as are the woodcut things. There’s a lot of details that I’m vaguely familiar but just can’t get the picture together, the book, Michael Crew, the lightning scar and the smell of ozone. Also I can’t believe that we are gonna go back to bugs now, seems like not very subtle foreshadowing that spider eating the worm carcasses.

I'll just go back to the details and try to make sense of that episode that way, so:

• Episode 4 Pageturner: case #0132806. The book Ex Altiora is mentioned. And I believe this is the first time that the library of Jurgen Leitner is mentioned. It has odd woodcuts and gives the feeling of vertigo. There is also the mention of an object “Key of Solomon 1863 owned by McGregor Mathers and Jorgen Leitner”, I don’t think this is relevant yet but I want to make note of it. Ok now that looking through it again there are so many details. This does indeed have the smell of ozone associated with Keays, the drawing of an eye and a weird quote. Ah ok. So the lightning pattern (Lightenberg figure) is mentioned and gives us the “origins” of Michael Crew. And Gerard Keay, son of Mary whom he murdered, burns this book that had been given as an anonymous donation in 2012. Which is many years after the statement from episode 46.

So before moving onto the weird figure which I’m almost positive has showed up before I went back to episode 46, to bring back a few facts.

• Michael Crew was struck by lightning at age 8, received a Lightenberg scar. He’s been in possession of two books from the Jurgen Leitner library.

• He was first in possession of The Boneturner's Tale which he left in a library and involved a creature of flesh but sharp and unnatural. The second one was Ex Altiora that led to his supposed disappearance after jumping out of a window in the bell chamber of the local cathedral.

•John mentions that Mr Know didn’t mention the woodcut of the sky with the Lightenberg figure, however it is present many years after just before the book is destroyed. Since this is the second time that the sky just eats the people I’m gonna say they are somehow related. And furthermore that many of the woodcuts are actually places or images related to people that the book has killed?? eaten??? done something to them in any case.

•Jorgun Lietner is dangerous in some way, knows about tunnels and things that shouldn’t be possible. His books bring only tragedy and must be dealt with.

Maybe I could bring some more details together but it’s nearly 3am so I'll just leave it be before the witching hour. It really feels that they want me to bring together every single weird details from past episodes and form them into a coherent blob. Can’t wait for more!

#tma #the magnus archives #hey this is my stuff #experiencing media

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ladyvesuvia · 4 years ago

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Nuggets with Gravy || [D.M.]

[Navigation] [Masterlist]

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Fem!Reader

Requested?: No

Summary: Draco takes the reader out for a drive-thru in a Muggle fast food, but they did not prepare the reader’s order properly. inspired by a prompt i got from this generator

Words: 1.6k

Category: FLUUUFFF

Warnings: light thigh touching, light cursing

Disclaimer: GIF NOT MINE! I do not own any of the characters in this story.

A/N: HAVE SOME FLUFF MILOVES

“I don’t understand, why can’t we just Apparate or use tacky Floo powder or something?” said Draco, with a hint of a whine in his voice.

“Because it’s a drive-thru, and I want you to see it for yourself. Now get in.” [Y/N] shoved Draco into the passenger seat, shutting the door harder than she should have.

As they exited the parking lot, [Y/N] suggested the I Spy game. It didn’t work out well as planned.

“I spy with my little eye. . .a mistake.” Draco said, his eyes scouring the view as other cars drove past each other. “Very big one.”

“You talking about me?” joked [Y/N].

“What? No! It’s just outside and it’s really tall.”

“Uh. . .I don’t know. Are you criticizing the highway we’re on or what?”

As McDonald’s loomed closer into view, Draco pointed out the tall drive-thru sign. “That’s the answer, I win.”

“What even is the mistake?”

“The sign! Did they really have to spell it like that? Why not drive-through with the O-G-H? It’s not that hard.” Draco muttered, mocking the tall sign of the McDonald’s drive-thru sign. “Lazy Muggles.”

[Y/N] couldn’t help but smile. Was he insufferable? Definitely. But this was the most comfortable she had been this summer. Having just gotten her driver’s license, [Y/N] decided to take her boyfriend out to something he’s never been in before. Being a half-blood herself, she knew he wouldn’t know a thing about the Muggle world, which gave her a number of ideas for more dates in the future.

“Alright, we’re here.” She said, slowing down in front of a window. A young woman — maybe older than them for a few years — leaned forward, and asked them what their order was.

“What do you want, Draco?”

“What, you’re not gonna call me ‘love’ anymore? What’d I do?”

“Fine. What do you want, love?”

“What are you having?” He asked, squinting his eyes to scan the menu before them.

“Nuggets with gravy.” [Y/N] smiled politely at the attendant, who didn’t seem amused. She wanted to apologize, but Draco would probably launch into a full-on presentation out of no where as to why she should stop saying sorry for the stupidest things.

“Okay, then I’ll have that too and a float.”

“Perfect,” said [Y/N], excitedly. “You’re gonna love it. Do you want fries too?”

“Sure, I guess.” His eyes drifted to the scenery outside once more, then back to the menu. He had not taken Muggle studies in Hogwarts, so he hadn’t much knowledge of what any of these are called. His second elective was Divination, considering that he didn’t bother to interest himself in the world of Muggles. Of course, he wishes that he did take it so that he could impress his girlfriend better rather than asking what everything is every two seconds.

He watched her intently as she told the attendant their order. “Two six-piece McNuggets, make the sauces gravy instead of barbecue sauce. Got that down? Gra. . .vy. Okay, I’m sor—”

She paused, careful not to apologize. “Gravy. Then could you upgrade the drinks to coke floats instead? And we’d like two large fries as well.”

As the woman jotted it down, [Y/N] put in her mix tape into the car’s player. Always by Atlantic Starr started playing, capturing his attention. “This Muggle song isn’t so bad.”

“Stop calling everything you see a Muggle object, just enjoy it. And of course it’s good. It’s by Atlantic Starr.”

“Sounds a bit old, though. I like it nonetheless.”

“Well, duh. It was released around eleven years ago.” She rested her hand on his thigh, teasing him.

“Shouldn’t I be doing that?” he said, playing with her fingers.

“Sounds a bit old, though.” [Y/N] retorted, bringing up her hand to his cheeks, squeezing it gently. The attendant returned, handing them their receipt. [Y/N] pulled her hand away, pulling out her wallet.

“No, I’m paying.” Draco started to pull out his purse. He had them converted in Gringotts, which [Y/N] berated him for.

“Nope, my treat this time. Just enjoy the food and the view, Malfoy.”

She put her attention back to the steering wheel, driving to the next window. A different attendant handed them the two paper-bags containing their food. As they drove away, [Y/N] asked Draco to check their food.

“Two nugget boxes are here, the coke floats are right there, and. . .” He trailed off.

“And what? Did they forget your fries?”

“No, the fries are here but they only put one gravy. The other one’s barbecue sauce.” Draco pulled out the two containers, showing it.

“That’s fine, you can have the gravy.”

“What? No! Make a turn.” He started to stand straighter in his seat, opening the his window. “It’s not that far yet, make a turn.”

“It’s okay, you can have the gravy. I can’t make a turn right now. It’s not that big of a deal, sweetie.”

“Not that big of— you specifically told Ada to put gravy instead of barbecue sauce. You even repeated it. That git!”

“Ada?” [Y/N] laughed nervously.

“The cashier thingy girl in the first window! She had that name tag. Agh, they messed up your food.”

“No need to turn back, I told you already — it’s okay.” [Y/N] made to reach for his thigh again, but he was busy still searching the paper bag, as if it would appear out of no where. “We’ll just pull over and eat, okay?”

“No way.” Draco reached for the steering wheel, moving it on his own.

“What the— Stop! You’re gonna get us killed!” She swatted his hand away as horns from passing cars sounded. Although she did not see the faces of the drivers, she knew full well they were angry. “You’re gonna make me lose my license on the first week, stop it!”

“Make a turn, then.”

“Alright! Alright! Get your hands off the wheel now.” Irritated, she kept on driving to look for a vacant space to reverse the car. After getting back on trail on their way back to McDonald’s she didn’t talk. What the hell was he thinking?

“Now what?” She spatted, arms crossed as she waited for Draco’s answer while the car stopped in front of the drive-thru’s entrance.

He seemed almost bashful, but not quite. “Drive in. I just wanna have a talk with Ada.”

So she did, and as they slid into the first window, Draco took off his seatbelt, inching closer to [Y/N]’s seat, his head already poking out of the window.

Ada, not looking up from a book she was reading, said in a dead tone, “Welcome to McDonald’s, may I take your—”

“WHERE’S HER GRAVY?”

Shit, shit, shit, this is embarrassing.

The book, which [Y/N] could now see properly now that Draco had inched further into the window, was Chicken Soup for the Soul, and Ada had dropped it in surprise. “Excuse me?”

“She asked for the sauces to be gravy, but you gave us one gravy and one barbecue sauce. Care to explain yourself, Mug— Mug. . .Donald’s?”

“MugDonald’s, really? Nice save.” [Y/N] whispered, scoffing.

“Shut up,” he whispered back. “Give us her gravy.”

Ada seemed dumbstruck, as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You know, I can drive away right now.”

“Oh no, you wouldn’t. You’re all about keeping your wretched license.” He replied to her, still looking at Ada. It was an uncomfortable position, and if [Y/N] slumped down, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to breathe. “The gravy, Miss Ada, hand them over.”

“Merlin, Draco, sit down, I’ll handle it.” She pushed him away, putting him back to his seat, forcing the seatbelt shut and turned back to Ada, who was still frozen.

“Hi, sorry, Ada. Could I replace this barbecue sauce with gravy instead? There was a minor mistake.” [Y/N] grabbed the paper bag on Draco’s lap, shooting him one glare before pulling out the barbecue sauce and handing it to Ada.

The attendant stiffly turned away, grabbing a tiny container of gravy from a shelf, exchanging the barbecue sauce in [Y/N]’s hand. Boy, she looked uncomfortable.

“Thank you, dear.”

When they got out of the drive-thru, [Y/N] remained silent again for two minutes until a string of fries popped up in her line of view. “I’m driving, Draco.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m feeding you. Hurry, they’re gonna get cold.” He waved the fry in his hand, holding it out in front of her face. “They’re delicious.”

“I know, Draco.”

Draco made a sad face, his hand clutching his chest in an effort to get her attention. “It hurts that you called that attendant ‘dear’ and you call me just that.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, give me the fry.”

Draco held out the fry again, and [Y/N] bit his hand as well, leaving tiny bite marks on his skinny fingers. “Ow! What was that for?”

“Swerving the wheel, throwing a tantrum in a drive-thru, and distracting me.”

“Well, no fair, I got you your gravy. I got you justice.” He started sipping his own coke float, making pathetic little puppy eyes as she pulled over at a mall’s parking lot.

“Whatever,” she squeezed his cheek again. “Weirdo.”

They started preparing their food. [Y/N] adjusted her seat so she could eat properly, and she couldn’t wait to indulge her favorite nuggets. Draco was the first to open his box, dipping one nugget into the gravy.

He took a bite and let out a satisfied moan. “Oh, Merlin, this is so good.”

“I know, right?” added [Y/N] as she chomped on her own.

“And you had the audacity to turn down coming back and getting your gravy!”

“Well, I could’ve shared with yours.”

“No way I’m sharing you my gravy.”

“Fair point, I wouldn’t share mine either.”

And with that, they ate in peace, savoring not just the food but the moment itself. It had been a very chaotic day, but their smiles of contentment was proof it’s what made them a great match.

And it worked for them, so who’s to say they’re a disaster together?

Taglist: @catching-the-train-to-hogwarts

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no-reply95 · 3 years ago

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I was scrolling through the Beatles topic on Twitter the other day and came across a tweet from Mark Lewisohn referring to a talk he’d given to the Fab4cast podcast on the Get Back sessions and Spring period of 1969. I assumed that it was a recent talk so I gave it a listen but the talk is actually from 2019.

I tend to find Lewisohn’s podcast interviews to be very interesting. He’s obviously got decades worth of Beatle knowledge stored up so you’re almost guaranteed to learn something new or hear an anecdote that you’ve never heard before but more than the factoids he’s accumulated over the years I find his interpretations of the band extremely telling.

The part of the conversation that really caught my attention was when the podcast hosts brought up the fact that John and Paul’s weddings were really close together and wondered if the two events were connected in any way, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that this probably got the biggest reaction out of Lewisohn, the main points of the exchange are outlined below (time stamp 47:12)

Host: “Well also in this period there are two events, the marriages of John and Paul, within 8 days of each other… I read that John wanted to marry on the 14th, two days after Paul’s wedding but couldn’t do it because of legal issues, how much was his [marriage] a response to Paul’s marriage do you think?”

Lewisohn: “I’ve read that people say that it was but never heard John say that it was so there’s no validity to those claims they’re just people assuming that John didn’t want to be outdone by Paul… that’s the kind of writing that annoys me because it becomes part of the fact and it’s some writer thinking that’s what it probably was… Unless someone out there can find a Lennon quote in which he actually says it in which case I stand corrected and I’ll be very happy to do so”

There’s a lot going on in these quotes so I’m gonna break down my thoughts on this further:

The illusion of John’s honesty

What Lewisohn displays here is something I believe is pretty common within the Beatles’ authorship. I believe in Revolution In The Head Ian McDonald referred to John as “truth” and Paul as “beauty” and I think a lot of writers do tend to assign those attributes consistently to John and Paul. Reading (or listening) to the Lennon Remembers interview now, it’s hard to believe at one stage people took what John was saying as fact and never even questioned whether there were emotions or agenda behind what he was saying, despite the contradictions (“Me and Paul stopped writing together in 1962” vs “Me and Paul worked really closely together on Sgt. Pepper”) and because John was so charismatic and would speak openly in interviews and to people he knew about both the good and bad in his life I think people, and in this case Lewisohn, assume that John told us everything of note that happened in his life, which I don’t think is a realistic expectation of anyone, let alone someone as famous as John. I think it’s problematic to take John’s or anyone else’s words, especially when they’re said in public, as the gospel truth because everyone has an agenda and John was no different. I also think it’s unrealistic to believe that John would ever announce that the reason he and Yoko got married when they did was in any way connected to Paul, that would have sullied the sanctity of “John and Yoko TM”, I mean, how can you be the greatest love story ever if the reason you decided to get married was because your musical partner who you may have unresolved romantic feelings for got married? I don’t think John would publicly embarrass Yoko like that or risk undermining the strength of the brand he was trying to create with his new relationship by admitting that Paul’s marriage spurred them on. That Lewisohn is apparently holding out for a lost interview of John stating that Paul was involved in the timing of his marriage to Yoko just sounds pretty far fetched to me.

The timing of John’s wedding in relation to his and Yoko’s divorces

As discussed in this podcast, Paul and Linda got married (pretty unexpectedly I believe) on 12 March 1969 and John and Yoko got married 8 days later (and apparently they wanted it to be sooner) on 20 March 1969. Aside from the extremely close proximity of John and Paul’s weddings it should be noted that John’s divorce from Cynthia was finalised in November 1968 and Yoko’s from Tony Cox was finalised in January 1969.

So why am I bringing up John and Yoko’s divorces? Because it meant that they were free to marry each other from January 1969, there was no longer a legal issue preventing them and if John’s bursting out in song about it, you would assume that they would have started planning their wedding ASAP… but curiously they didn’t. How do we know John and Yoko weren’t planning a wedding before Paul married Linda? Because once Paul was married John and Yoko started scrambling to get married ASAP, suddenly there was a rush and need to be married that hadn’t existed before, John suddenly wanted to marry Yoko on a ferry but they couldn’t be married there, then John wanted to marry Yoko in Paris but they needed to be resident in Paris for a period of time before they could get married there so eventually they settled on Gibraltar as they could get married there at short notice. Clearly there was a sudden need for John and Yoko to get married that didn’t materialise until around March 1969, am I and countless other people (including Paul himself) crazy for assuming that Paul’s wedding impacted John’s sudden desperate need to be married? If it wasn’t Paul’s wedding, what was it?

Authorial interpretation and assumptions

I’m really fascinated by the visceral reaction Lewisohn had to just the suggestion that the timing of John and Yoko’s wedding was connected to Paul and Linda’s. For Lewisohn to state it annoys him was pretty shocking to me because, given what is publicly known about this period and the lack of any other logical reason for John and Yoko’s wedding to be so close to Paul’s and Linda’s, I don’t think it’s bad writing to point out the proximity and suggest that the timing was more than a coincidence.

Based on his reaction, you would assume that Lewisohn would be set against any form of interpretation where the principal in question hadn’t confirmed that the interpretation was in fact correct but that would be an incorrect assumption to make. Some of you may be aware of the Hornsey Road shows Mark Lewisohn was giving in 2019 around the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road. During these shows Lewisohn played a clip from the, now infamous, 4-4-4-2 meeting tape and gave a presentation on the Abbey Road period in the Beatles’ history. One of the points Lewisohn raised during the show was that during the sessions, after the car accident in Scotland, a bed was brought into the studio for Yoko so she (and sometimes John) could rest while work on the album progressed. According to Lewisohn, one morning they turned up to the studio and someone had removed one of the legs from the bed, leaving it with 3 legs *dramatic pause* which was him heavily hinting that he thought Paul broke Yoko’s bed on purpose and then bragged about it on the Ram album by including a song called 3 legs, I’m not going to go into the validity (or lack thereof) of this claim but I find it very interesting that Lewisohn was annoyed about authors suggesting that the timing of John and Yoko’s wedding was connected to Paul and Linda’s but he seems happy to publicly speculate that Paul was sabotaging Yoko’s bed in the studio based on the title of a song that he would release on Ram two years later and nothing else.

Is there any evidence that connects John’s wedding to Paul’s?

I’ve already outlined the suspiciousness of John and Yoko choosing to get married right after Paul, when they had been free to marry for weeks prior but is there any other evidence that either proves that the weddings were connected or is Lewisohn right to deem that suggestion as lacking in validity?

Interestingly there actually is unverified eyewitness testimony that does connect John and Paul’s weddings (something not mentioned by Lewisohn in this podcast). I believe there’s an anecdote from Les Anthony (John’s chauffeur at the time) about him driving John and Yoko around when news of Paul’s wedding suddenly came across the radio, to which John apparently said to Yoko that “we have to get married now”… I couldn’t track down the exact source for that story (if anyone knows the source please let me know) so I’m not sure how credible that anecdote is but, assuming it is accurate, then that would suggest a correlation between John and Paul’s weddings that Lewisohn is adamant doesn’t exist.

Why does this matter?

I do think that this podcast interview could be indicative of a few future concerns I personally have around the way the Beatles discourse will progress in the future. Firstly, this was only a podcast interview so it’s unlikely that when Lewisohn releases the final book in his trilogy that he’ll discuss the weddings in this manner (I.e. although he’s adamant the timing of John’s wedding had nothing to with Paul he failed to offer any sort of explanation regarding why John and Yoko were rushing to get married when they’d had weeks to prepare a wedding).

It’s a slight worry that Lewisohn seems to believe that John announced every single thing that happened in his life of note, especially concerning Paul and Yoko. If John had told us everything of interest about him, surely his Dakota diaries would be the basis of a Netflix series by now and not locked away in a vault (assuming they haven’t already been destroyed). To me, like several authors before him, Lewisohn seems to be mistaking John’s emotional honesty with factual honesty. It didn’t escape my attention that several clips of the Lennon Remembers interview were inserted into this podcast and Lewisohn quotes extensively from it in Tune In as well. There’s nothing wrong with using Lennon Remembers as a source but if you do use it you should be analysing the veracity of what was said as we know that John was in a torched earth mentality at that time and even he himself has said what he said in that interview wasn’t meant as a timeless manifesto. It’s a shame that given his ability of analyse sources Lewisohn has never (to my knowledge) critically analysed Lennon Remembers, given that other sources have been analysed this makes LR a strange omission.

Finally, Lewisohn does tend to make some good insights and does have the ability to read between the lines (I.e. him noting Paul’s tendency to say “we” when in most cases he means himself) but with John I do think he has a bit of a blindspot. Why Lewisohn is happy to speculate without evidence in some cases (3 legs) but he draws the line at the suggestion that John and Paul’s weddings being connected is anyone’s guess. If Lewisohn can turn his attention to reading between the lines with John and the other Beatles too and connecting the dots then we should get a Beatles biography that finally addresses a lot of the issues we cover on this site. However, if we take the approach of only using John and Yoko’s PR to understand the events that transpired before and after the band broke up then the story hasn’t moved much further than 1970 and given all that we know now I think that would be a huge shame.

#the beatles #john lennon #paul mccartney #john and paul #mark lewisohn #paul and linda #john and yoko #double wedding #beatles podcasts #given Lewisohn’:s status it’s crucial he doesn’t just dismiss things he doesn’t like as invalid #interpretation is fine as long as it’s correct #i have other podcast thoughts on a separate show #thoughts #long post

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kozumekenza · 3 years ago

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on my mind :: seven

:: suna rintarou x f!reader :: playlist :: masterlist ::

:: taglist: open :: wc: 1.8k ::

After a drunken one-night stand with your ex, you thought you could get him out of your life for good. Unfortunately, the two of you can’t seem to keep away from each other. Why can’t you leave each other alone? And more importantly, why is he still on your mind?

tw: alcohol, profanity, gets a bit nsfw at the beginning, implications of sex

“Do you wanna come inside?”

Your voice may have been slightly pleading, but you didn’t care. You wanted to have this conversation with Suna, wanted to tell him how you felt, wanted to wake up next to him tomorrow morning and all the mornings after.

“Are you sure?” Suna seemed hesitant, and you knew why. He knew that by inviting him in, you were inviting him to a conversation about your relationship.

You nodded your head and unlocked the door to your apartment. You poured two glasses of wine and then found yourself in a familiar position; you sitting at one end of the couch, Suna on the other.

“You probably know why I asked you to come in,” you said, sliding one of the glasses down the coffee table towards Suna. He nodded, and you continued. “I really wanted to wait until after the Olympics, so I wouldn’t be distracting you, but I just can’t wait any longer.” You looked him in the eye before continuing. “I love you, Rintarou, and I can’t wait any longer to tell you. I want to be with you, I want to go with you back to EJP, if you’ll have-”

Your words were cut off by a very enthusiastic Suna who had dove across the couch to capture your lips with his. You kissed him back passionately, until he pulled away to whisper to you.

“Of course I want you to come to EJP with me. I want it to be you.” You giggled somewhat childishly, allowing yourself to be caught up in the sheer happiness of the moment. You could feel Suna’s smile against your lips, his hands roaming across your body.

“Do you wanna stay the night?”

Suna nodded enthusiastically, pulling you up from the couch. You led the way to the bedroom, tugging Suna’s hand and leaving the half-empty wine glasses on the table.

As soon as you crossed the threshold of your bedroom, Suna was pushing you up against the wall, hands holding your face with such reverence that you thought you might cry. You could feel his lips ghosting across your jaw, neck, and collarbone as you carefully tugged off his shirt. You put your hands against his chest, reveling in the smooth, hard muscle there. As you started working on the button of Suna’s jeans, he still hadn’t made a move to undress you.

“Rin, please,” you whispered, voice feather-light and absolutely pleading.

You could feel the sinister grin that spread across Suna’s face against your neck, and you knew you were in trouble. “Already begging for me, babe?”

You scoffed and pushed him back until his thighs hit your bed, watching as he fell backwards into the mattress. “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” You took your clothes off rather unceremoniously, Suna smirking at your own impatience. Standing in front of him in just your bra and underwear, you slid his jeans off. He continued smirking until you straddled his waist, only two layers of cloth separating you two. His hands found your hips as you leaned down to kiss him. Suna’s lips were soft, perfectly distracting you as his hands drifted.

You allowed yourself to be caught up in the heat of the moment, your mind completely drifting as Suna took control. Whispered words in the dark made your heart beat faster, soft confessions of love and Suna’s deep voice praising you. You savored the feeling of him, strong arms wrapping around you, a hand grabbing both of your wrists, back muscles rippling underneath your fingertips.

When you fell asleep later that night, you were tucked into Suna’s chest, his arms wrapped around your body.

---

The sunlight streaming in through the windows woke you the next morning. You found yourself stifling a laugh at the familiarity of waking up with Suna, only this time, it was under much better circumstances. You didn’t make a move to disentangle yourself from his arms, instead sinking farther in and allowing yourself to close your eyes and listen to his heartbeat.

He stirred, leaving a gentle kiss on your forehead as he rolled to face you completely. A hand came up to rest on the side of your face. Suna’s eyes were soft, a sleepy smile on his lips.

“I’m not dreaming, right?”

You giggled a little at his question.”No, this is real.”

“Good.”

“Why do you ask?”

He gave you a long blink before answering. “‘Cause it’s everything I’ve been dreaming of for the past eight years.”

You swatted at his arm, laughing. “You are so soft for someone who has chronic resting bitch face and never answers personal questions in interviews.”

“You watch my interviews?”

Blushing, you nodded. “Every single one. And every highlight reel. Every game. Anything to do with you.”

“Who’s the soft one now?”

His knowing grin made you groan, lifting yourself off the bed. Suna clung to your arm like a sloth. “Where do you think you’re going?”

You rolled your eyes. “Breakfast, I’m hungry.”

He released you and flopped back into the bed, burrowing into your blankets. You smiled at his antics, then got up to make coffee and something to eat.

---

The weekend passed in much of the same fashion, you and Suna staying in bed much longer than you should, watching replays of EJP games (Suna needed your opinion, apparently) and talking.

On Sunday afternoon, you pulled out your laptop to email a resume to EJP’s coach, but Suna stopped you.

“I already called coach, the job’s yours if you want it.”

You snapped your head up to look at him, laptop sliding off your lap. “Huh?”

“You got the job, it’s yours.”

“What do you mean? I haven’t even applied or sent a resume.”

Suna just looked at you. “You don’t need to, you’re hired already. I called coach and gave him your credentials, and he wants you to be our trainer.”

You gave Suna an incredulous look. “When did you do that?”

He smiled, “Two weeks ago.”

Your jaw dropped. “You were that confident that I would get back together with you?”

“I call it hopeful. And yes.” You rolled your eyes before pulling him in for a kiss.

“Thank you, Rin. And let me guess, I already have somewhere to live?”

“Of course, with me.” You grinned. “My apartment’s pretty big, more of a penthouse, anyway. We can move back together after the Games.”

Your smile became even wider. You liked the idea of “together”.

---

When you and Suna walked hand-in-hand into Monday’s morning practice, Atsumu laughed.

“I fucking knew it. You two can’t keep away from each other.”

Suna punched Atsumu in the shoulder before dropping you off at your office with a kiss on the cheek.

Practice was much better now that you and Suna were actually together. With two weeks until the move into the Olympic Village, training was picking up. The hardest would be over at the end of the week, with the week before the move-in full of easier drills and low-impact exercises. You enjoyed being able to watch Suna without restraint, taking in every move, every muscle.

You spent your evenings with Suna, taking extra care of sore muscles and aching joints. He laughed at your fussing, but you didn’t stop. You wanted him to play at top form in the upcoming Games, and you were going to do everything you could to make sure he got there.

Atsumu was petty about you “playing favorites”, as he put it, but his jealousy was quickly dismissed when you threw an ice pack at him.

On the last practice before you left the National Team training center, the atmosphere was electric. Training was minimal, focusing on stretching and keeping muscles warm rather than drills and practice matches. You even watched tapes from the most recent world championship, taking notes on opposing teams and players.

When practice was finally over, you helped Iwaizumi pack all of the training gear.

“Thank you for doing such a good job this season, y/n. I know the team will be in good hands with you.”

You smiled bright at his praise. “Thank you. I hope you enjoy Argentina, although I and everyone else will miss you.”

Iwaizumi shrugged. “It’s about time I left anyway. My fiance’s been waiting for me for quite some time.”

You laughed a little bit. “That’s quite romantic.”

“Just wait ‘til you meet him. He’s the opposite of romantic. In fact, he’s quite annoying.”

“I’m going to meet him?”

“Yeah, he plays for the Argentina volleyball team. He’s gonna be all ‘Iwa-chan, how dare you be on Japan’s side. How dare you be their trainer. I can’t believe you.’ Just wait, it’s obnoxious. You’ll wish you didn’t meet him.”

Stifling your laughter, you replied, “I’m sure that’s not true.”

Without missing a beat, Iwaizumi said, “It is, trust me.” He looked over his shoulder at you. “Anyway, I should be the one congratulating you. It seems you and Suna finally figured everything out.”

Your cheeks flared red. “How’d you know about that?”

Iwaizumi chuckled. “Atsumu, of course. The whole team’s been making bets on how long it would take for you two to get back together, for Suna to realize who took his jersey, pretty much everything.”

You paused, one of your hands still in a box of athletic tape. “He told you everything?”

Iwaizumi nodded, watching as you stomped towards the locker rooms. “Excuse me.”

Iwaizumi proceeded with his packing, only pausing slightly when he heard a very loud, very agitated, “Miya Atsumu!”

---

You dropped the heavy box you were carrying, wiping the sweat from your forehead. Suna dropped his box next to yours, then flopped on your bed.

“Get off, Rin. This isn’t your room. And we have more boxes.”

He groaned, looking up at you. “C’mon, y/n. It’s hot, and I need to rest. Big games coming up, y’know?”

You grabbed his hands, dragging him off the small bed. “A few more boxes, Rin, I promise.”

Later that night, after unpacking the boxes of training supplies and going over schedules with the coach and Iwaizumi, you were finally settled in your tiny room in the Olympic Village. You were rooming alone, with team supplies taking up half of the space. Just as you were about to drift to sleep, your door opened, a tiny sliver of light from the hallway slipping in.

You didn’t even roll over. “Rin, there is not enough room for you in here. This bed is tiny as fuck.”

“C’mon, y/n. I can’t sleep when I’m not next to you.”

You tried to ignore the pleading tone in his voice, but you could picture the puppy dog eyes he was probably giving you. “Fine,” you sighed, lifting the blankets for him to join you.

“Thank you, babe.”

You hummed, relishing in the warmth of Suna’s chest, just about to fall asleep when-

“Hey, do you think it’s true that these beds break if you have sex on them?”

---

The bed broke.

taglist: @sunasexual @call-me-lulu @ntimacy @circleglasses @porcolie @keikotaro @rintarovibes @kenmaslov3r

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angeldcgs · 8 months ago

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she'd been expecting to hear him insist that she stay, but it still gave her a twisted sense of satisfaction to hear how agitated the very idea of her leaving made him. despite how hard cricket was on him, and despite how much it must've been hurting him to be working with the woman who'd broken his heart, he still wanted her here, whether that be because of her obvious musical prowess, or because he foolishly wanted another opportunity to just be in her presence. "if ya' want my help, y'er gonna have t' toughen up. i ain't treatin' ya' like a baby, if that's what y' want." it wouldn't kill her to be a little gentler in her delivery, and his album certainly wouldn't suffer for it, but then he might get the wrong idea and think she'd agreed to help him because she was harboring some sort of feelings for him. while there was more to how she felt about him than what she'd admit, more distraught over his departure from her life than she'd anticipated, she would never admit that to herself, let alone confess that to laurie. remaining cold and closed off would hopefully mean she'd get to exert some sort of influence on his work without making his pathetic crush even worse. if she was being honest with herself, though, she knew being around him would no doubt worsen his feelings for her, no matter how mean she acted. clearly her cruelty wasn't enough to deter him, seeing as he'd still fallen for her even after she berated and demeaned him day in and day out back when they worked at the diner, so it was unlikely there was anything she could do to stop it at this point. all the evidence was there, and yet cricket was still convinced that his love for her was nothing more than a phase, something he'd grow out of once he wasn't a naive young man with low self esteem and learned that latching on and projecting all your fantasies onto a person you barely knew wasn't healthy for either party. laurie just needed to get it all out of his system, write his whiny songs, release them to the world, and move on. and once they were done recording, cricket could finally wash her hands of the whole ordeal and devote all her focus to what really mattered, namely the pursuit of her own career, which had never seemed more hopeful than it did right now. it was funny; she'd been at it for almost a decade, doing everything she could to get her music off the ground and heard by a broader audience, but it wasn't until she'd teamed up with laurie to help him record his first album that she was actually able to catch the attention of a record label. apparently it wasn't enough for a woman to provide a demo tape of three incredibly written and expertly performed self-produced tracks, she had to have her name in the credit's of a man's album in order to actually get anywhere. each time he met her gaze with his bloodshot eyes, cricket felt that familiar ache in her chest— she had to fight the urge to slap him in the face for looking so pitiful. "let's hear it," she repeated, gesturing for him to say whatever it was he was clearly bottling up. maybe telling her off was just the sort of emotional release he needed to turn this shit recording session around. it irritated her how tolerant he was, just rolling over and accepting whatever blows she felt like doling out that day; she wanted him to fight back, or stick up for himself in some way, which was part of the reason why she kept pushing him, trying to force a defensive reaction out of him. he never truly got there, though, and it was clear he wouldn't now, either. not with the defeated way he simply relented to continuing on with no resolution made, but cricket knew if they went back to recording, they'd just run into the same issue. "so don't talk," she responded simply. "y' said i ain't let ya' get through the song... well? here's y'er chance." though her arms crossed over her chest once again, the act was devoid of the same sternness that usually went along with it, trying to adopt a more encouraging aura as she waited for him to comply. "promise i won't stop ya' this time."

"no-" laurie was quick to dismiss the idea of cricket leaving. he'd given her the opportunity when she first arrived, as much as he'd missed her it was obvious that the feeling wasn't exactly mutual and he didn't want to be the reason for any of her discomfort. that being said, she'd chosen to stay and help him and he knew she could really do that if they could manage some kind of compromise with how she thought help should come about. she was a million times better a performer than he was, laurie knew it to be true and it sucked that she hadn't been allowed to show the world her talent but he always thought they worked the best as a team. there weren't many things she lacked in his eyes but he was more willing to be outwardly vulnerable, a trait that helped when it came to writing songs and she understood the technical side of song-making a whole lot better than he did. their teamwork was uneven, with one side offering a lot more than the other but they were a team in his eyes either way. in that moment though, laurie felt more like the young boy he used to be when cowering under the attention of his drunken father than a collaborator on a potentially great song. was he really asking for so much? could she not see that a gentler touch might do them both some favours? then again, would it be cricket if she wasn't doing things her way? he could do nothing but stand and shrink underneath cricket's scolding, his glossy eyes turned down to the floor when facing her disdain for his sudden bout of emotions became too much to try and bear it was only when she prompted him to speak that laurie made himself look up again and meet her softened eyes, surprisingly tender for someone who had spent the last hour making him wish to curl up into a ball and die. "what?" he was quick to query, not certain what it was she wanted exactly. it was obvious, he was just too embarrassed to believe it because the second he did, he would feel compelled to do as she wished. laurie chose instead to shake his head and shoot a quick glance out to the empty room opposite theirs. what was everyone thinking about him as they lingered outside? were they on cricket's side, viewing him as overly sentimental and not focused enough on the work, or did they see that her arrival had sparked a sensitivity within him that needed to be treated with care? with one final wipe across his face, laurie rubbed his shaky hand down the front of his shirt, precariously unbuttoned lower than he'd usually go, and then waved the entire situation away. "whatever... i- it doesn't matter. just give me a minute and we can go again." it was somehow easier to humiliate himself in front of a group of people than just cricket alone, it was tempting to give her what she wanted but if it came along with the threat of his heart being broken any more than it already was, for the sake of the work they were trying to do it wasn't a risk worth taking. "i don't wanna talk about this anymore..."

#{ cricket caulfield — thread }#{ cricket vs. laurie }#thcophagy

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soulmate-game · 4 years ago

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This is an alternate ending for my Bio!dad Joker / Bio!mom Harley AU. Or really, the timeline itself will be entirely different starting from the moment that Marinette’s plane lands in Gotham. If you haven’t read the original, you can do so here.

—*—*—*—*—*

“He’s going to find out, Mom.”

“No he won’t, don’t be silly! I’ve been very careful about hiding you from him, Nettie-pie.”

“Mom… I just have a bad feeling. I don’t think we can hide who I am from him. If he sees me, I think he’ll know.”

The phone went silent.

“If he hurts you, I’ll kill him. If I was crazy about him, Sugar, then I’m head over heels for you. Not even he can stop me from caving his skull in if he tries his usual tricks with you.”

“... My plane leaves soon, I’ll talk to you when I land. And mom?”

“Yeah, honeycake?”

“I love you.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette often hated how accurate her intuition tended to be. She had barely even stepped out of the airport before she had felt the prick of a needle in her neck and the sensation of being shoved into a small, dark space before her vision cut out.

Looks like her mom wasn’t able to hide her existence away as well as they thought.

And unfortunately for Marinette, her darling asshole of a father had apparently had ample time to plan his first meeting with her. If he had just used the much easier to acquire Chloroform on her, then Marinette likely would have woken up early enough to come up with a plan. Chloroform was unreliable and wore off fairly easily. But no, he had actually had the time to steal hospital grade anesthetic.

Which meant that Marinette woke up with her wrists zip-tied to heavy links of chain above her head, and her ankles connected to the chain below her with what felt like ten layers of duct tape.

Lovely.

“Ah, there she is! Good morning, sleepyhead!” Those were the high-pitched, dramatic words she heard when she came back to consciousness. She didn’t even need to open her eyes to know who the speaker was— she had watched enough videos online and not-so-legally obtained Asylum and Prison footage to immediately recognize the speech patterns and tone that was echoing around her.

Apparently keeping her eyes closed was not allowed, because it was only a few seconds later that Marinette felt a harsh slap sting her cheek and whip her face to the side. Oh, that would become a bruise without a doubt. Her teeth betrayed her, cutting into the inside of her mouth with the force of the hit. So, when Marinette opened her eyes to glare at the sperm donor responsible for half of her DNA, she aimed her bloody spit right at him. It landed on his shoe, which only a few seconds later slammed into her gut.

Marinette gasped for air even as the chain she was on swung violently, making her dizzy and upsetting her stomach. Too bad she didn’t have anything in there to throw up on him, she thought angrily. The chain links rattled loudly, ringing in her head alongside the electric pain of both of her newly forming bruises.

“Honestly, is that any way to treat your dear ol’ Daddy?” Joker cooed with false offense, one hand over his heart. Marinette glared at him as best as she could as she continued to sway in the open air, the chain she was tied to being the only thing keeping her from plunging straight down into a vat of sickly green, bubbling liquid.

Marinette didn’t need to be told what that liquid was. And joker knew that, the moment he saw her look down at that vat and saw the realization almost immediately cross her face. So instead of explaining, he laughed. Loud, high, and deranged.

“Good, good! That idiot Harley kept you educated, at least,” he said between psychotic chuckles. “Ah yes, and she somehow managed to choose the perfect name,” he glided over to her, as if he was some ethereal demon of chaos instead of a human. His paper-white hand reached out, grabbing her chin in a crushing grip and turning her face this way and that. Inspecting her as if she was a piece of china and not a living being. “So easy to adjust. Right now, you’re Marinette. Just like how, all those years ago, your mother stood here as Harleen. But just as she was dunked into acid and became my harlequin,” he stepped back and grabbed Marinette’s shoulders. He spun her like a top, making the metal chain creak and clink as it wound into a few weak coils and then released back out, trying to go straight again. It sent Marinette twirling through the air in a horrid half-spin, one-eighty degrees one way before sharply spinning to the other side. Joker laughed.

“Just like that, you’re gonna go from boring old Marinette,” he stuck out his tongue like a child, as if the mere taste of her name was bitter. “And you’ll be reborn as my new little Marionette. Aren’t you excited?!”

“Fuck you,” Marinette spat, even as she tried to blink and return her vision to normal. She was far too disoriented to even come up with a plan— but she was still coherent enough to register that the sky was dark outside the high windows of the factory she was apparently in. She had been missing for a few hours then, which meant that her mom and Momma Ivy would have called for help a long time ago. Maybe if she just stalled long enough, it would get there in time. “I’m not a puppet. Not for you, not for anybody!” She snarled.

Joker rolled his eyes, but his smile still widened. “Oh, that’s what they all say. In fact, your mother put up a good resistance there for a while, but her inner chaos couldn’t resist me. You’ll bend even easier, I have no doubt,” her ran his hand along her cheek in a motion that was so gentle that it felt foreign, wrong, to her coming from him. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to whiplash her, take all her hope away before dangling the option he wanted her to choose in front of her like a carrot on a stick.

Too bad he didn’t know her at all. She cringed away from his gentle touch, revolted by the mere feel of his skin on her’s.

“And your accent is a nice touch,” he cooed as if her reaction didn’t bother him at all. It probably didn’t. “Exotic. Just the thing I need to freshen up my usual act a bit, the Boston twang my old Harlequins had is just… stale by now, don’t you agree?”

Marinette clenched her jaw at the reminder that he had tried to pass off a cheap look-alike as her mom when she disappeared, back when she was pregnant with Marinette, to hide her baby from Joker. How he had discarded that woman like trash when Harley went back to him, only to replace her again when her mom left him for good.

No matter how badly Joker spoke of her mom, Marinette knew that Harley had been the only Harlequin of his to actually last. The only one he kept around, and there was a reason for that. Now, he was looking for another replacement. One that was more than a cheap knockoff, and he was hoping that a teenager with not only Harley’s genetics, but also his own, would be the exact kind of right-hand prop he wanted. An obedient little puppet of chaos, just for him.

But Marinette was nobody's toy. She had been used and taken advantage of enough back in Paris, she had spent her whole life struggling to escape the side effects of her parentage. To deal with the things she inherited.

The obsessiveness, the way she was so quick to get attached. She knew she inherited that from her mom. But there was also the rage, the anger that Marinette constantly had to stuff down. Hide below the surface before it hurt someone. Keep under a tight reign and hide away in the back of her mind, her own dirty little secret.

The constant reminder of just who her biological father was. Because that anger, that viciousness, could only have come from him.

She had spent her whole life trying to carve herself her own identity, to create beauty with the chaotic elements she got from her blood. And she couldn’t blame her mother, not really. Her mother at least did her best to help, and always leant an empathetic ear when Marinette needed it. But Joker?

Oh, she could, and would, blame him even long after he was dead and gone. Because he was the one who hurt her mother, he was the one who twisted her and drove her to feel unfit to be a parent. And sometimes, Marinette thought it would be better if Joker never existed. Sure, that meant she never would have been born. But wouldn’t that have been easier, too? To not ever have to experience the struggle that came with being his daughter, a title she never consented to?

But she couldn’t change the past. She was alive, and she would use her life to spite everything that the Joker stood for. That would be her revenge. He wanted a toy?

Joker had been monologuing, but Marinette drowned it all out as she kept her periphery vision on the windows above her. Shadows moved out there, with familiar bright yellows and shadowy blacks. The bats were there. She just needed to stall.

She opened her mouth. Joker pulled a lever.

Marinette dropped.

Wire whizzed through the air, knocking the breath out of Marinette as it wound around her torso. She was barely able to piece together what was happening; one of the bats shot a human-safe grapple to try and pull her away from the acid.

But the chain and her restraints were stronger, heavier, and just dragged the grapple down with her body.

The impact sent a large wave of sickly green liquid surging over the side of the vat, and Marinette was dragged from view underneath the surface.

It burned.

She distantly felt the tape around her ankles peel itself away from her skin, the combination of acid and wetness rendering it useless. She felt the chemicals burning at her, sending painful tingles across every last inch of her skin. It got in her mouth, she didn’t have any breath in her to hold and ended up swallowing some. It seared her throat and created a river of lava inside her. It hurt.

It hurt so bad, she just wanted out. Out. Out. Out!

Someone pull her out now!

The zip tie around her wrist loosened enough for her to pull herself free, right as something heavy slammed into the heavy metal bowl. The entire container sloshed, slamming to fall onto its side. Marinette’s body was pulled alongside the rush of liquid as it flowed out, and she was able to breathe air again. Sweet, cooling air.

And then she hacked up acid, spitting and spewing it in an attempt to purge every last drop she had accidentally ingested. Like a cat choking on a hairball, she coughed and hacked and her chest convulsed and contracted to try and help her. Her ribs ached, she figured that the grapple that had tried to save her had ended up fracturing or breaking a rib or two. But all she cared about was breathing and getting rid of the chemicals she had inhaled. She needed it out. All of it. Out. Out. Out of her!

“Try to take a deep breath,” a gruff voice commanded, soft but solid. Something stable for her to cling to. So she did as it asked, forcing herself to stop hacking and instead focus on inhaling. As slowly as she could. It was difficult, the first few breaths cut themselves off with more involuntary coughing, but the owner of the gruff voice stayed nearby. Repeated it’s request. “Deep breath. Steady, now. In. Out. Good.”

Marinette was just starting to calm down, just starting to claw herself out of the haze of panic and adrenaline, when that wretched laugh cut through the air again.

“There you are! Heheheheh! My cute little Marionette!”

Marinette froze. She could barely think, barely understand her own emotions. But she knew she was different now. She knew there was no way back, he had taken it from her. He had taken her normality, he had taken all of her years of hard work and burned them right in front of her.

He had won. The bats hadn’t been fast enough. But, if her foggy mind was correct, Batman was the one trying to bring her back to lucidity. Batman was the one trying to help her get air back in her lungs.

Not her so-called father.

If he wanted a toy, she’d be a haunted doll. She’d harass him, haunt him, until he wanted nothing to do with her. She’d come back, like a possessed porcelain doll refusing to be thrown away. She would make him regret ever awakening the monster that she had spent so long forcing down. Because she was her father’s daughter, yes. But she was also her mother’s daughter.

And most importantly, she was Marinette Quinzel-Isley. Her own damned person. The Chosen wielder of the Creation miraculous. And she would never bow down and be used by anyone, ever again.

Tikki’s words from so long ago echoed in her mind. Resounded even louder than Joker’s laughter;

“That’s all order really is, Marinette. The decision to take all the chaos and madness around us, and make it make sense. Make it do something good.”

And wasn’t that everything Marinette had ever done? It was a part of her now. Like a tattoo she had inked into her very soul.

She took the chaos she was given, and turned it into something beautiful. And right now? Right now, the most beautiful thing she could think of was Joker’s face when she slammed her fist into it.

“Easy,” Batman repeated, but for a different reason now. Marinette’s lungs still stuttered a little, but her breathing was mostly under control. Now, he was saying it because Marinette was forcing herself to her feet. Her legs trembled under her, threatening to lay her out on the floor again. But she was every bit as stubborn as Joker, which made for a terrifying combination with her all-consuming fury. The acid had broken the mental chains Marinette had been using to hold it back, and now it burned fierce and bright in her eyes.

So Marinette kept herself up right, cognizant of Batman’s hand on her shoulder but ignoring it. She grit her teeth against the burning light of the room, everything suddenly too bright and colorful. Too vibrant. But it did little to distract her. She realized that one of her hands still gripped the heavy chain that had sent her drowning in the acid, and sent a snarl at her darling, jackass of a father as she whipped it out right towards him.

“Marinette!” Batman yelled, his grip tightening on her shoulder. But he didn’t pull her back, which spoke louder than any words he could have said to her right then. He wouldn’t save Joker from his daughter, he knew the man deserved at least this much pain. And sure enough, the metal links slammed right into Joker’s side, winding around him like a crushing whip.

But that was all Marinette had the strength to do. As soon as she saw Joker’s body hit the floor, writhing in agony and painfully loud cackles, her hand let go of the chain and her body tumbled down. Batman caught her.

“Red Hood, Nightwing, get Joker back to Arkham,” Batman’s order faded in and out of focus. Now that her most pressing desire was taken care of, the effects of the acid reared their ugly heads with renewed ferocity. Everything was too bright, too loud, and her thoughts echoed in her head like voices wrestling for supremacy. “Robin, Black Bat, stay on alert. Harley said that she’s incredibly trained,” he warned his partners. Marinette didn’t begrudge him, the only other two people who had survived being dunked into those chemicals hadn’t exactly treated him with kindness and pacifism. But she could barely focus on them anyway, too distracted by trying to reign in the chaos in her mind.

But Joker would never stay silent, even as he was dragged away in chains.

“Hehehahahahaha! Paper white, paper white!” He jeered cheerfully. “That’s my girl! Violent just like Papa!” Red hood knocked him out with a harsh punch to the side of his neck before he could say another word. But it was enough— enough for Marinette to gasp in realization.

Her skin. It was paper white, just like his. Not even Harley’s skin had been bleached like the Joker’s after her dip in the acid. That had always been makeup. Her mom had a healthy, peachy complexion like anyone else. A complexion Marinette had shared— until now. Now, she was unhealthily pale. Just like him.

A painful screech tore itself from her already raw throat, and Marinette’s fingernails immediately began to tear at her own skin. Red. Red was better than white— she didn’t want to look like him. She couldn’t. White was bad. Bad. Bad. Bad.

“Marinette! Stop!” Strong hands clamped around her wrists, pulling her hands away from herself even as she wriggled and tried to keep clawing at herself.

“No! No no no!” Marinette howled. “I don’t wanna look like him! I don’t wanna be like him!” She managed to get one hand free and immediately tried to tear away at her face. Batman was able to wrestle her arm away before she could do any damage besides a few angry red lines. “I refuse! I refuse! I refuse!” She shook her head, not feeling as tears flung themselves off her cheeks.

“Okay,” Batman’s voice was solid again, soft and grumbly and stable. She grabbed at it again, drawn to anything that might help bring her stability. She needed his unflappable attitude right then, and he probably didn’t even realize how badly. “That’s good. But you don’t need to rip your skin off to do that, you know that right?”

Marinette hiccuped, finally sinking down to sob as the weight of everything she had lost pressed down over the chaos of deafening light and blinding sound that continued to jumble around inside her head. “He changed me,” she choked out. Batman nodded even though she wasn’t looking at him.

“He did.”

“Th-that f-fucking bastard,” Marinette managed a sad chuckle before devolving right back into sobs. “I wo-worked so h-hard. N-never hurt any-anybody. Never… never yelled. Ne-never hit… Not people who didn’t attack f-first.”

“I know. Your mom told me,” he confirmed calmly. Solid, tethering. Marinette swallowed another gulp of air, trying to calm down. But everything was too much.

“Mom!” She suddenly realized out loud, turning and grabbing at Batman’s chest, clinging to his uniform. She didn’t even care that she almost sliced herself on a batarang, she clung to him desperately with wide, crazed eyes. “G-get Mom and… and Ivy! They… they can help. They know—“ Marinette paused to breathe, then resumed. “Momma Ivy— she gave me—gave me a diluted… th-thingy, years ago, I can’t remember—“ Marinette’s eyebrows furrowed as she tried to get her mind to calm down. To work.

“The serum she gave Harley?” He asked. “The one that made her immune to poisons, and gave her increased physical abilities?”

“That!” Marinette agreed frantically, nodding. “I was too— too little, to give the real thing, so she diluted it,” she swallowed her spit and winced when it burned her throat. “It… I think it’s helping with the—the—the—“

“The chemical’s effects?” Batman suddenly sounded like he was paying much more attention than before, his shoulders a little straighter at her explanation. “You think it’s slowing down or numbing what it did to your mom and Joker?” Marinette couldn’t talk anymore, it hurt too much. Everything hurt too much, so she just nodded. “Good. That’s good, Marinette. Robin! Get Harley and Ivy down here, now!”

That was when the voices started. Sometime during the ten minutes it took to get her Mom and Ivy to her, they had apparently been waiting nearby anxiously incase the Bats had needed backup, the voices had built from ominous whispers to devious shouts, ordering her to do things like slam her elbow into Batman’s throat or see what happened if she splashed Robin with some of the acid that was still on the ground.

Her body didn’t move. She kept herself carefully still, focusing on ignoring her impulse to listen to one of the voices. She was still lucid enough to know that she would regret it if she did any of that. That the Bats were more on her side than any of the voices or the Joker were. But it was growing painful, and Harley and Ivy walked in to Batman trying to keep Marinette from hitting her own head. She had devolved to trying to knock herself out to get the voices to be quiet.

“Shut up,” she hissed, her voice hoarse and gravelly. “Shut up, shut up, shut. Up!” She was clearly talking to herself, her eyes screwed shut as she continued to try and hit her head. Harley gasped, hands flying to her mouth and eyes watering at the sight. This was something she had hoped she would never see.

“Harls,” Ivy spoke softly, putting a gentle arm around her wife’s back in support. It hurt Ivy to see Marinette in so much agony, but she knew it pained Harley even more. And much more personally. “Come on. We can help.”

“Y-you’re right,” Harley agreed shakily, taking a deep breath to try and compose herself before they both approached their daughter. Batman didn’t let go of Marinette, but did lean out of the way to give them access to her.

“Honeycake?” Harley called out softly, a little unsure how the chemicals were affecting her baby’s personality right then. The first few days were going to be the worst, and she knew that. The Dunk never took it easy on it’s victims. Marinette gasped, stopping her muttering and raising her head to look at Harley with wide eyes.

“Momma?”

Harley had to swallow heavily to shove back the sob that wanted to bubble up out of her. She had to be strong for her baby. She couldn’t break yet. But Marinette hadn’t called her Momma since she was little, now she called Pamela ‘Momma Ivy’ and her just ‘Mom’.

“It’s me, sugarplum,” she assured her daughter, kneeling down and cupping one of Marinette’s cheeks in her palm. And that was when she noticed it, and couldn’t help but widen her eyes in shock. But Marinette’s senses were so sensitive that she noticed it right away, and stiffened.

“Wh-what is it?” She grew frantic when Harley didn’t immediately respond, only winced in sympathy. Marinette knew that wasn’t good. “Mom? What is it? What did he do? What else did he do to me?”

“Darling,” Harley started, licking her lips nervously. “My sweet baby girl, your right eye… it’s green now, sugar.”

Marinette’s world froze. She tried to smile, but it came out lopsided and disbelieving. “No,” she somehow managed to breathe. “No, mom, I have your eyes. Your blue eyes. I love your eyes,” Her voice steadily got more and more panicked as she went on, not wanting to accept what her mother was clearly seeing. She watched as Harley’s face broke a little, a few tears escaping before the older woman could stop them. Marinette shook her head again, slipping her tiny wrist out of Batman’s hold and raising it to her eye. “No. It’s one of his tricks. He—he must have slipped a contact in my eye when I was passed out, that’s— that’s— that’s all—“ but her fingertip met her normal eye. No contact to be felt. Marinette’s hand fell into her lap limply. The room was absolutely silent as everyone gave her a few seconds to process just how much she had been changed, entirely against her will. She opened and closed her mouth, not sure whether she wanted to yell or curse or cry. Instead, her voice just came out in a very tiny, broken:

“...fuck.”

—*—*—*—*—*

Marinette had gone mostly mute. She would say a word here or there, but for the most part she was doing a good impression of a vegetable. She stayed silent, as still as possible, and just stared at the ceiling of her hospital room.

She had been like that for the past two weeks they had been monitoring her in the Acid’s aftermath. Her ribs, which had turned out to only be bruised thankfully enough, had healed. Her cheek and torso were healed up too, only the barest hint of sickly yellow to show as a reminder of Joker’s hits on her. Sometimes the cameras would catch her talking to seemingly empty air, only for a nurse to rush in and see that Marinette had gone silent yet again.

Tikki was doing her best to help. She had been separated from Marinette, but Pamela had found Marinette’s purse and returned it— and subsequently Tikki— when they had gotten her to the hospital. She was the only person Marinette regularly spoke to, because Marinette knew Tikki understood. Tikki had been around since the Big Bang, she had seen worse things than a little insanity. Tikki had always been there to help her feel at ease with her mind and body. She shared a piece of Tikki’s soul, even, according to the tiny god.

But talking to anyone else was too hard. Too scary. She still had those damned voices at war in her mind, trying to convince her to do things that made her lock her joints and keep her body absolutely still before she acted on any of the coaxes. Possibilities she had never considered before came startlingly easy to her mind now— like how it would only take two seconds to tear her IV out and stab it into her nurse’s eye. How she could use her blanket to strangle Momma Ivy, or how she could fake jumping out the window and Harley wouldn’t waste a second trying to save her.

They were horrible thoughts. Intrusive, ugly, and far too loud. She didn’t want to act on any of them, but sometimes she found her fingers twitching only a second before she could follow through on one.

She spent a lot of time meditating, because of it. Which is why most people thought she was ignoring them. She didn’t mean to, she just needed to meditate. It was like her brain was a giant room filled with filing cabinets that held her thoughts and emotions. Her whole life, Marinette had carefully kept this room alphabetized, organized, and neat. Every file in its correct drawer. Until Joker had come along, and ripped the entire place apart. Tore certain files in half, broke her cabinets, ruined her filing system. And now she had to put the room back together, one drawer and piece of paper at a time.

That’s what the meditation was doing. She was getting reacquainted with herself. Learning what had changed in her mind and trying to adjust. She couldn’t be the old Marinette anymore, but she’d be damned if she let the Joker turn her into someone ugly like him.

So she needed time.

One day, towards the end of those two weeks, she got a visitor slipping through her window. Considering her room was on the tenth floor, she had it pretty narrowed down as to who it could be. Batman had visited her every night, a silent shadow in the corner, but he had already left for the day so it couldn’t be him. None of the other bats had dropped by after the second day.

She turned her head to see that that was now changed; Red Hood sat on her windowsill with one leg inside the room and the other bent on the sill itself. He looked the very picture of comfort despite being a stiff wind (or quick shove— no, bad brain) away from falling to his death. And then Hood took off his helmet, which was ugly enough to inspire some of the more violent suggestions in her brain and make them seem appealing.

“Ya know. Red Hood used to be what Joker called himself,” were the first words out of the vigilante’s mouth. Marinette’s eyebrows pulled down, and it was clear she was confused (and a little angry) at what he told her. He grinned, his eyes still hidden by the domino mask on his face. “Eh. The bastard killed me, ya know. I was the second Robin, a lifetime ago.”

Marinette’s eyes widened at that, and the violent voices dimmed and seemed to grow muffled. Marinette couldn’t quite understand what they were trying to tell her anymore, which made her figure that she had better pay attention to what Hood had to say. She licked her dry lips, and spoke softly. Her throat was still damaged from the acid, so she couldn’t speak very loudly yet.

“Then how are you… you know, here?”

The man chuckled. “Another group of assholes happens to have a magic pit in their basement. It’s a glowing green lake, ten different types of bad news. But it brings people back to life, and they dunked me in it without even caring for a second if I even wanted to come back.”

Marinette’s shoulders relaxed all on their own. It seemed to sink into her brain all at once, a simple:

Oh. He gets it.

“I guess the water doesn’t take it easy on your brain, either?” She hazarded an educated guess. He laughed, shaking his head.

“Not at all. I went off the deep end for a while, and killed a lotta people. They deserved it at least, but I don’t like how violent I was back then. Before I learned how to cope. Attacked people who were innocent. Red Robin almost died when I attacked him, back then, when he was just Robin.”

“Then why’d you keep calling yourself Red Hood?” She asked, tilting her head. He finally turned his head to look straight at her instead of just staring out the window. His grin widened, but it was lopsided. The grin of someone who was healed from some serious shit, but knew that it would always ache. A bittersweet expression.

“Cuz he doesn’t own that name. I made it into something that stands for at least a little good. Something that scares the assholes who don’t care about killing or abusing innocent people. Hell, some people take comfort in the name Red Hood now. And you know what that means?”

Marinette shook her head, and his grin widened into a shark-like smile.

“It means I stole it from him. The name Red Hood. He’ll never use it again, and now it stands for the opposite of anything he’d agree with. You can do that too, you know. Find something to steal from him, or use something he gave you, and make it your own.”

“Turn the chaos into something good,” Marinette said dreamily, clearly quoting someone. Red Hood nodded.

“Exactly. It’s not gonna be easy, but you got the choice here. You ain’t going back to who you used to be, but you can take the victory away from him.”

“... make him regret ever dunking me in that stupid vat,” she agreed, narrowing her eyes as they filled with determination for the first time since her body hit the acid. “He wants a puppet, an obedient little doll, I’ll give him Annabel.”

“There ya go,” The vigilante slid off the windowsill and approached her bed, holding out his hand for a shake. “I can help you get to that. What do ya say?”

Marinette was silent for a long minute, staring straight into his masked eyes. And then, a slow smile spread over her lips. “I got one question, Red Hood.”

“Shoot.”

“How do you feel about black cats?”

—*—*—*—*—*

This took four hours, holy hell. I’m actually happy with how this turned out. What do you guys think? I even got to max length on Tumblr 😂

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #jasonette #bio!dad joker #bio!mom harley quinn #Poison Ivy x Marinette #platonic brucinette

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shawnsprincesse · 3 years ago

Text

When life throws you lemons Part 17 (Shawn Mendes AU)

When life throws you lemons, you’re forced to deal with Shawn Mendes. Before moving in with five guys, including Shawn Mendes, Kylie swore she would never ever in her life allow Shawn to get anywhere near her but things quickly change and soon she finds herself drunkenly kissing him in a bathroom. What starts as a drunken kiss turns into a passionate secret relationship.

I woke up feeling like absolute shit. I couldn’t remember anything from the night before except for that fact that I’d drank way too much for my own good. I sighed, it felt like someone was drilling into my brain and running me over with a bulldozer. I released a groan as I rolled over on my side, reaching for the water bottle on my bedside table. The water was old and warm but it seemed like a good way to relieve the pain inside my body.

The bed felt so big and empty and I felt so small and helpless as I laid back with my pounding head against the fluffy pillow. I stared up into the roof as I tried to remember what happened last night, my head tried to replay the memories like an old VCR rewinding a tape but this tape was broken and most of the memories were missing.

I took another sip of the warm water, giving myself some good and definitely needed hydration. I was too lazy and too hungover to go into the kitchen to get a new cold bottle. I tried to focus as hard as I could on last night, remembering fractions of a place I’d been in. The room was foreign to me, it had a large bed with creamy white concrete walls. It wasn’t familiar to me, I’m not sure if I’d been there before.

There was a soft knock on the door as I stared at the roof, interrupting me from trying to remember my late night endeavors.

”Can I come in?” Shawn asked as he peaked his head through the door, his soft curls bouncing down his forehead as he looked over at me on the bed.

”Mhm.” I nodded as I covered myself with my blanket.

”Are you okay?” Shawn asked as he watched me reach for the warm water, taking a final sip of the last liquid.

”My head is killing me.” I groaned as I placed the empty bottle on the bedside table.

”You were pretty drunk last night.” Shawn chuckled as he sat down on the chair by my desk, placing his arms on the armrests.

”I know.” I sighed, I didn’t need to remember anything to know I must’ve been really fucked up last night. My head hasn’t been aching like this in a while, probably not since I was a teenager.

”It was quite amusing.” Shawn teased, releasing a chuckle.

”Well hopefully I was amused too.” I groaned, cursing my past self for forcing my present self to deal with this. Whatever she was going through last night, could probably not beat what I was going through right now.

”So, am I gonna have to remind you of the great sex we had or do you still remember it?” Shawn taunted me as he flashed me a cheeky smile. I had no clue what he was talking about, the only thing I remember was that unfamiliar room.

”I don’t remember anything.” I groaned as I realized that my drunk self had made the irrational choice to once again have sex with Shawn.

”Judging by the way you’re feeling right now, I must’ve fucked your brains out.” Shawn boosted teasingly as he wiggled his eyebrows at me.

”Shut up!” I moaned as I tried to roll my eyes at him. ”Why are you so fucking happy about all of this?” I groaned, annoyed by the apparent smirk on his lips.

”I don’t know.” Shawn shrugged. ”Because I like fucking you.” He shrugged as if he didn’t have a better answer to my question.

”Well, glad you enjoyed it, it’s never happening again.” I pointed out as I narrowed my eyes at Shawn.

”You’ve said that before.” Shawn pointed out, his smirk widening.

”Did you just come here to boost about us having sex or did you actually want something?” I asked confused.

”No, I just came to check on you to make sure you were okay.” Shawn laughed as he threw me a new, cold bottle of water. ”Judging by your sassy mouth, you seem to be fine.”

”I’ve had better days.” I muttered as I opened the cold water and took a sip of the water. It definitely tasted better than the luke warm water I’d previously consumed.

”Mhm.” Shawn chuckled. ”Let me know if you need anything.” He added as he stood up from the chair. I watched, confused, as he slowly walked out of my room. Why was he all of a sudden so nice? And why did he care about my well being? Did Shawn Mendes suddenly decide to become a decent person? Something here wasn’t right but I was too hungover to be able to put my finger on it or remember anything else.

After drinking half of the water bottle I had to force myself to waddle over to the bathroom. I pulled my panties down before I sat down on the toilet, feeling relief as a large amount of pee came out of me. I must’ve drank a whole fucking sea last night because the pee wouldn’t stop flowing out of me.

After wiping, I stared down at the red thongs on my hips. A faint memory of me taking my panties off the night before flashed through my head. I looked at myself in the mirror, sighing at the birds nest of a mess that was supposed to be my hair. I had last night’s makeup smeared all over my face and my bra was achingly choking my breasts into place.

I wiped the smeared makeup off my face and observed myself in my mirror, there was a purple bruise on my shoulder, at first I thought it was a hickey but as soon as my fingers pressed against the sensitive skin, I realized it was an actual bruise. I closed my eyes as I stood in front of the mirror, my hands reaching down under the tap to collect some water. I splashed myself a few times, hoping that it would help me think clearly.

I slowly began to remember the same familiar room. I hadn’t been in it, Shawn had been there with me. I remembered us fighting over something and the image of me and him fucking up against the wall flashed before my eyes, as if I was seeing it from someone else’s point of view.

I groaned as I splashed the cold water against my face again. It was as if I was punishing myself for my previous choices, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to remember more than that single flash or not. Maybe I should stop splashing myself and live happily ever after not knowing what had happened last night.

Suddenly my water splashing was interrupted by a knock on my main door. I walked out of the bathroom and called out come in.

”What are you doing here?” I laughed as Bella walked through the door.

”What do you think I’m doing here?” She giggled as she closed the door behind her.

”Wait!” I said as my hungover brain started to put the pieces together. ”Did you sleep here?” I asked as I noticed Bella’s glowing eyes, her face was beaming with excitement.

”Yes!” She squealed happily.

”Wait, you guys finally did it?” I asked, matching her giddy excitement despite my terrible headache. I knew how long Bella had wanted this and I couldn’t be happier for her. She’s been ranting about Niall for months and now she’s finally going out with him, which makes me extremely happy. I’m glad someone got their shit together, unlike myself, who apparently managed to fuck Shawn Mendes again? At least one of us is making the right choices.

”We did!” She chanted and the two of us giggled like school girls.

”Tell me everything!” I said as I sat down on my bed. She laughed, joining me. Bella told me about the movie date and how they’d gone out for drinks afterwards. She told me everything they’d talked about and what they’d done as they came back to the house. She didn’t spare any details and I listened intensely, swallowing all the gossip up. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to look at my roommate the same way after Bella was done spilling the details of their sex but whatever.

A part of me wanted to tell Bella about the mess that was my life, while she was spilling happy details about her sexual encounter with Niall I sat in silence, wanting to tell her about the regretful sex my drunken self had had last night with Shawn but I couldn’t. She would never look at me the same way, especially since I’d sworn a million times over that I would never have sex with Shawn. My pride is in a delicate state and I’d rather not lose the little dignity I have left.

”I heard you had a rough night.” Bella giggled as she looked over towards me, hoping that it was my turn to spill some details but I knew I couldn’t spill anything to her because I would have to kill myself afterwards.

”Apparently I did.” I released a soft giggle. ”I wouldn’t know.” I tried to brush everything off like I couldn’t remember a single thing but as I kept sipping on my water and hydrating myself, things were starting to come back with me. The memory of Shawn pushing me up against the wall consumed me. I could feel the butterflies inside me go wild as the image of Shawn thrusting into me crossed my mind.

Bella released a giggle. ”How’d you know though?” I asked her confused.

”Shawn told me.” She replied with a smile. ”He told me to go check on you.” She added.

”Oh.” I replied shortly. ”Where’s Harry?” I asked confused.

”He’s still at Brandon’s.” Bella explained and I shifted my gaze towards the door, confused.

”Wait, Harry didn’t come home?” I asked confused. How the hell did I get home then?

”No.” Bella replied, confused as to why I was confused.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door, interrupting our conversation.

”Sorry-” Shawn interrupted as he carefully opened the door. ”I was just gonna say, there’s breakfast.”

”We’ll be out in a second.” Bella replied with a soft smile. What is going on here? It’s like I got drunk, hit my head and woke up in an alternate universe. I’ve never been this confused in my entire life. Did Shawn make us breakfast? Why’s he all of a sudden being so nice and likable? It’s confusing and I’m not sure if I like it or not.

I pulled on a pair of cotton shorts and a crop top before taking off my uncomfortable, pushup bra. Bella followed behind me as I walked into the kitchen, the smell of newly toasted bread, fried bacon and eggs filled my nose. Niall was already at the table and Shawn was by the fridge, pulling out a fresh jug of orange juice. He was shirtless and casually dressed in a blue pair of sweatpants, another image of last night flashed before my eyes as I stared at him confused as to why all of a sudden he was cooking. I’d never seen him cook before and I wasn’t even sure he knew how to, yet here he was flipping eggs and bacon.

”Wait, what happened to your shoulder?” Bella gasped as she noticed the purple bruise on my shoulder.

”Uh-” I choked out as I tore my gaze away from Shawn, who’d immediately turned towards me, a smirk playing on his lips as he heard Bella’s question. ”I don’t know, I must’ve fallen or something.” I lied, choking on my own breath as I tried to avoid Shawn’s lingering gaze.

”Really? That must’ve hurt!” Bella commented and I tried to shrug it off to shut down the conversation.

”Yeah, well I don’t remember anything so, it’s not that bad.” I shrugged, trying to brush it off.

”Are you sure you don’t remember anything?” Shawn cooed at me.

”Nope.” I said popping the P with as much ignorance as I could.

”Sure…” Shawn sounded doubtful and I shot him a defensive glare.

Bella had left after breakfast and I’d decided to crawl back into my dim lit room. My head was still aching and I still felt like I’d been hit by a truck but at least the hangover eased up a little bit after breakfast. My hangover wasn’t only thing that had cleared up after breakfast, my memory was also starting to come back to me and it was not a pleasant experience.

After playing the night over and over again inside my head, I decided I needed some air. I walked out of my room and towards the front door. I stood in silence as I heard two voices outside the door, not wanting to interrupt the conversation I stayed inside.

”So you’re telling me you’re just best friends?” Shawn’s voice emphasized the word just. ”You’ve never had sex?” He asked for clarification. Is he always this nosy? Jeez, leave people and their sex life alone.

”Yeah, pretty much.” The other voice replied, it was Harry. They were talking about me.

”But is that because you’re best friends or because you’re not attracted to her?” Shawn asked.

”Is there a difference?” Harry asked confused and I stood in silence, barely breathing as I leaned my ear against the wall to be able to hear better.

”Yeah.” Shawn replied.

”I guess, because we’re best friends.” Harry shrugged. I quickly shuffled away from the door as I heard the handle twist. I tried to act as casual as possible as Harry walked through the door. His face immediately lit up as he noticed me lurking in the hallway.

”Hi.” He greeted me with a smile.

”Hey.” I replied.

”Everything good?” Harry asked as he kicked his shoes to the side.

”Yeah, a bit hungover though.” I laughed softly.

”Yeah, but you crushed it at beer pong last night.” Harry laughed as he walked past me.

”I know.” I released a chuckle, trying my best to act like I hadn’t just heard what Harry had said about me. I've known Harry since we were little kids and not only did I feel bad about overhearing the conversation between him and his cousin but I also felt bad because last night I’d fucked his cousin for the second time and also because I didn’t feel the same way. I don’t think of him as anything other than my best friend.

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